I live by my diary, so I balance that with my husband so we both get time to spend with our daughter. Monica thinks her daughter is headed for a career in music productionĪs both you and your husband David work long hours, how do you balance work with your home life? Having a teenage daughter at home means I like to cook simple meals, rather than the two or three dishes we have to create on MasterChef. Presumably you find cooking for your family a bit more relaxing than what you doĭefinitely, it’s a whole lot more relaxing than what I do on television. Even today that is how I prefer to cook – I still insist on using fresh ingredients, even when I’m cooking at home. It’s the freshness of the ingredients we had there, which in a way we took for granted back then. You were born in Samoa and brought up in New Zealand – do the flavours of these countries still influence your cooking now? It was a very simple life, but we had all of these fresh ingredients on our doorstep. I was raised in the Pacific Islands, so I remember picking fruit every morning for breakfast or collecting the eggs from the chickens in the garden. What are your earliest memories of learningīeing in the kitchen with my mother from an early age. She’s very musicalĪnd it looks like she’s heading for a career in music production and songwriting. She only comes into the kitchen when she’s hungry.
Hi Monica! Your daughter Anais is 14 – is she showing any signs of following you and becoming a chef?ĭefinitely not. Here, she tells us about how she juggles her busy life, what her teenage daughter Anais thinks of her cooking and how she feels about fame… At Home: My Favourite Recipes For Family & Friends draws influences from growing up in both Samoa and New Zealand, and all that has wowed her taste buds over the years. Now as well as her MasterChef duties and hosting BBC2’s Amazing Hotels, she’s releasing a new cookery book of very special dishes. Seven years later, she opened her first restaurant, Mere, with her sommelier husband, David. She soon made a name for herself as the first female sous chef at Michel Roux Jr’s London restaurant, Le Gavroche.
Monica left her home in New Zealand at the age of 23 and headed to London to follow her dream of becoming a top chef.
“I was sick to my stomach,” reveals the 46-year-old about starting her TV career in 2009. So we’re surprised when we sit down to talk to her that the mum-of-one admits in the early days of the hit show she was shaking with nerves behind that firm but fair facade. Not only that but she remains cool at all times, even when things get heated in the studio. As a judge on MasterChef:The Professionals, Monica Galetti doesn’t mince her words or seem to have any qualms about telling the chefs exactly what she thinks.