The Food Fairy

Christchurch local Lyne Cameron is affectionately known and best described as the ‘food fairy’.

It’s nothing for her to work long hours each week at her day job and then come home and spend a day cooking over the weekend.

“It’s cold outside, often raining, and I just love cooking and baking in my kitchen and will call friends and neighbours about 4 pm and say don’t make dinner I’ll meet you at the fence or come over at 5pm.”

What’s more, this devoted home cook also volunteers to help cater functions, takes food to work for morning tea and shared lunch, helps cater for friends “too busy to cook,” and willingly drives to Dunedin to feed sick friends with a car full of goodies. “Food fairy” almost doesn’t seem enough.

And where did it all start? The Edmonds Cookery Book. “It’s a Kiwi thing, take the beloved Edmonds cookbook, get the basics right, and then add your own twist or embellishment. I simply love feeding people and making them happy” says Lyne. Her love of cooking started at home – her mother Gwen would work as a Dunedin baker during the day and encouraged Lyne to start cooking when she was about 8 or 9.

Lyne’s favourite Edmonds recipe

“There are so many recipes I have started with in the Edmonds Cookery Book, it’s impossible for me to say which is a favourite – except the apple crumble and apple sponge were always family favourites from the start.”

Lyne's Baking Tips

• Add a little golden syrup, rolled oats and allspice or nutmeg to the Edmonds Apple Crumble recipe. It also freezes well. “Freezing it unbaked then pop into the oven when you need it is ideal – I have found long and slow cooking of the apple crumble intensifies that caramelisation and it is delicious! Another favourite is to make the crumble with Black Boy peaches and reduce the sugar slightly in the recipe.
• Invest in a good spatula – a serious one that will work to get ingredients out of the bowl but also heat proof to use in a pan on the stove.
• Also invest in a good food processor – the whizz cuts your work load in half and is great for making crumble and pastry. When making pastry in the whizz double the recipe and freeze half as it’s so helpful to have on hand at a later time.
• Make the Edmonds self-saucing chocolate pudding but “always double the sauce recipe, as it’s so popular you always need more.” Also make the pudding and serve as soon as possible after making as the sauce does get absorbed into the pudding as it sits waiting to be served.
• As a child Lyne would use the Edmonds scone recipe as a base for a pizza and says it still works with great results.
• The freezer plays an important role in Lyne’s kitchen. See the useful guide in the Edmonds Cookery Book. “So many things can be frozen in advance and even in some cases, like corn and courgette fritters and some soups almost improve with the freezing process. Also if you are travelling far with canapes, for example, for a function – if frozen they are less fragile and travel better and then quickly heated up in the oven – easy!”