In the several years that I’ve known Jenny Morris, she’s always greeted me with a warm smile and a teddy bear hug.
While her effervescent personality is infectious, it is also unsettling. To this day, I cannot figure out how she makes time to do TV shows, put together cookbooks, run her Cooks Playground cooking school as well as a restaurant, Yumcious.
And that’s not even taking into account her work commitments at various festivals and events around the country and globe.
I will be more settled when I learn of the secret to her boundless energy.
This wonder woman, who fans idolise as "The Giggling Gourmet", continues to impress. She is currently in Food Network’s "From the Heart with Jenny Morris".
The 10-part hour longer series comes on the back of her delightful travel food shows, "Jenny Morris Cooks Morocco" and "Jenny Morris Cooks the Riviera", as well as Jenny and Reza’s Fabulous Food Academy, on the channel.
Now falling under the Discovery Networks umbrella, she’s back and sizzling with new recipes.
Taking a break from braising a delicious bean and brinjal curry, she says, “Out of the blue, we got a call. It was amazing. This show is studio-based and was shot in Dubai in November last year.”
She couldn’t stop raving about the team she got to work with.
“When you have a good team, the magic happens. It was such a smooth shoot. It was incredible. The only thing my staff couldn't find was fresh bay leaves. I took along some snoek from home and artisanal cheeses with me.
"Each episode is themed. One is called ''Ladies at Lunch' and looks at very easy recipes where you can show off. Then there’s 'Rise and Shine', which is about doing breakfast with the family around brunch time. There’s homemade bagels, chunky smoothies and frittatas.”
There’s also an episode where she gets to celebrate "Mummy Love".
“That’s when the table is absolutely brimming with everything your kids love. My mother used to make a delicious braised steak. I used to wait for the bottom part, whenever she made it. And my father used to make brinjal, butternut and braised potato curry. It had lots of garlic, ginger and curry leaves.”
Simplicity is Morris’s compass when she’s in the kitchen developing recipes, which eventually make it into a book and definitely the classes and her cooking school.
She adds, “I don’t like it when people over-engineer food. I couldn’t do it any other way. I want people to be inspired. I want them to cook.”
Offering her take on the food trends this year, Morris shares, “Charcoal is quite a big thing. Everybody is eating charcoal, even the supermarkets are making charcoal bread. Me, I would rather pop a pill, quite frankly. It is so black and dense.
"Apparently, it is very good for you. Veganism is here to stay, whether you like it or not. People are more conscious about what they are eating, where it comes from and how it is farmed. It is very delicious food but expensive to reproduce.
“Plant-based food is absolutely massive. You are going to be eating lots of purple and blue food, which is very healthy for you. So your aubergines, beetroot and that kind of thing. Seaweed is a superfood. I have been using it for 20 years. It is the most amazing ingredient.”
Viewers can tune into her show to find out what’s cooking as every plate comes from the heart.
*"From the Heart with Jenny Morris" airs on Food Network (DStv channel 175) on Thursdays at 7.55pm.