We Had To Put Our Lives On Hold
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ|September 2018

For popular cook Allyson Gofton, the past couple of years have brought one difficult challenge after another. In a courageously honest interview with Emma Clifton, she talks about her son’s frightening injury, the sadness of losing her good friend and mentor Tui Flower, and the challenges of being an older mum.

Emma Clifton
We Had To Put Our Lives On Hold
​​​​​​You’ll have toast with your soup, won’t you? Good girl.” Allyson Gofton is buttering a pile of toast as we sit in the cosy kitchen of her Auckland home. Never one to turn down bread in general, I’m particularly thrilled to be well fed by one of New Zealand’s most familiar faces when it comes to food. For more than 30 years, Allyson has been helping Kiwi families make fast, delicious and healthy meals through her iconic TV show Food in a Minute, her columns in various magazines and newspapers, and her best-selling cookbooks. Based in both Auckland and in France with her husband Warwick and their two children, Jean-Luc (15) and Olive-Rose (11), Allyson is in the midst of organising her next cookbook, a compendium on baking with all the tips and tricks that used to be passed down from one generation to another. “Running a family and writing a book is like to trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together and you put a piece down, and you think you’ve got it in the right place, and then somebody comes in and yells at you because they can’t find their hockey stick, and then all of a sudden you can’t remember where the puzzle piece goes and it takes you two days to get back to where you were,” Allyson says drily. “It would be fantastic if I could just sit around and shut the world out for three months, but it’s not possible.”

Case in point: 15 minutes into our interview, a young dietitian, who has come to talk about working on the new cookbook, turns up, so we pause our chat while Allyson runs what might be the world’s loveliest job interview – so lovely, in fact, that the dietitian ends up staying for soup and toast as well. This, it turns out, is very Allyson – warm, kind and approachable.

Her kitchen is a home cook’s haven; I count 75 spices in her pantry. (“Did you also spot that they’re in alphabetical order?”)

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 2018 من Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 2018 من Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY NZ مشاهدة الكل
PRETTY WOMAN
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

PRETTY WOMAN

Dial up the joy with a mood-boosting self-care session done in the privacy of your own home. It’s a blissful way to banish the winter blues.

time-read
3 mins  |
July 2024
Hitting a nerve
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Hitting a nerve

Regulating the vagus nerve with its links to depression, anxiety, arthritis and diabetes could aid physical and mental wellbeing.

time-read
5 mins  |
July 2024
The unseen Rovals
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

The unseen Rovals

Candid, behind the scenes and neverbefore-seen images of the royal family have been released for a new exhibition.

time-read
2 mins  |
July 2024
Great read
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Great read

In novels and life - there's power in the words left unsaid.

time-read
2 mins  |
July 2024
Winter dinner winners
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Winter dinner winners

Looking for some thrifty inspiration for weeknight dinners? Try our tasty line-up of budget-concious recipes that are bound to please everyone at the table.

time-read
3 mins  |
July 2024
Winter baking with apples and pears
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Winter baking with apples and pears

Celebrate the season of apples and pears with these sweet bakes that will keep the cold weather blues away.

time-read
7 mins  |
July 2024
The wines and lines mums
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

The wines and lines mums

Once only associated with glamorous A-listers, cocaine is now prevalent with the soccer-mum set - as likely to be imbibed at a school fundraiser as a nightclub. The Weekly looks inside this illegal, addictive, rising trend.

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2024
Former ballerina'sBATTLE with BODY IMAGE
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Former ballerina'sBATTLE with BODY IMAGE

Auckland author Sacha Jones reveals how dancing led her to develop an eating disorder and why she's now on a mission to educate other women.

time-read
7 mins  |
July 2024
MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN

When Alexei Navalny died in a brutal Arctic prison, Vladimir Putin thought he had triumphed over his most formidable opponent. Until three courageous women - Alexei's mother, wife and daughter - took up his fight for freedom.

time-read
8 mins  |
July 2024
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO START
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO START

Responsible for keeping the likes of Jane Fonda and Jamie Lee Curtis in shape, Malin Svensson is on a mission to motivate those in midlife to move more.

time-read
5 mins  |
July 2024