Josh Emett to cook up a storm at Fieldays

Ben Armstrong is wearing a black chef hat, a striped dirty apron that looks like he has had a bucket of food thrown on him and grey-checkered pants, and has a smile on his face.

It is a busy Saturday night at Iguana restaurant in Hamilton and dessert chef Armstrong is hard at work preparing immaculate dishes for the customers.

A machine starts printing off a ticket, and Armstrong quickly grabs it and sticks it onto a metal panel.

It’s a dessert order for four. Chocolate overload, fruit salad, lemon meringue pie and raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake.

He starts grabbing dishes and sauces to prepare the desserts.

He takes a slice of chocolate cake from the fridge and places it on a plate.

“The best Kiwi dessert would have to be chocolate cake, it is just the most common one, and every Kiwi loves chocolate,” Armstrong says.

The Kiwi’s Best Kitchen marquee is designed to showcase quality New Zealand food and beverages.  Each year a celebrity chef cooks prepares and demonstrates a range of Kiwi cuisine.  This year that will be Masterchef New Zealand judge Josh Emett.The cuisine Armstrong prepares is the best of Kiwi, and that’s the theme this year of a display area at that most Kiwi of institutions, Fieldays. Visitors can expect, if not chocolate cake and meringue pies, other classics.

He is excited to be this year’s celebrity chef as he and his father used to come to Fieldays when he was a youngster.

“My father cooked in the burger truck they had at field days. The burgers were great, they used to go off,” Emett says.

He will cook an array of dishes for Kiwi’s Best Kitchen including duck, quail, rabbit, and vegetable dishes.

The New Zealand heartland is not all about local cuisine, though. Not too far from Fieldays, the Persimmon Tree Café in Pirongia serves dishes based on the owners’ overseas travels.

Michelle Knot and her husband Andrew Park, proud parents of two, took over the café in May 2007 after working as chefs around London and France.

A lot of Knot’s ideas for cooking foods in the café come from her travels. She tries to recreate dishes that she has tried and loved overseas, as well as foods that she enjoys eating. Their most popular dish at the café is the Japanese Garden Salad.

But there’s a local flavor to Knot’s tastes as well. She starts reminiscing about her nana’s famous chocolate slice.

“I remember going to my nana’s house and there was always chocolate slice being made, or pikelets fresh from the pan.”

Knot says that she only occasionally watches cooking shows like Masterchef and My Kitchen Rules, but when she does she gets inspired by the meals they create.

Armstrong also says he doesn’t watch cooking shows.

“I just don’t have time to watch them – either that or they are on while I am working.”

Armstrong continues making his chocolate overload dessert. Another chef comes by grabs a jersey caramel lolly, looks around to see if no one is looking, and shoves it in his mouth.

Armstrong catches him at the last second, but he is already gone.

“Staff come back here often and eat the lollies,” laughs Armstrong.

He glances up at the clock and notices the time: 9.25pm.

“Honestly after cooking all day, the last thing I want to do when I get home is cook, so I usually settle on two-minute noodles,” says Armstrong.

Knot also eats very plain dinners when at home. Lots of boiled rice, broccoli, carrots and normally a fried or roast meat.

“We have been getting takeaways more often now than it has ever been. Once every two weeks. We had takeaways last night. In saying that, we had KFC – it wasn’t very nice though,” says Knot.

Persimmon Tree Café is big on New Zealand made and produced products. Knot says  they are all about trying to support locally produced food and suppliers.

Kiwi’s Best Kitchen will also be promoting and selling locally produced and made foods, cookware, beverages, kitchen accessories, as well as Emett’s new range of slow cooked meats.

”It’s a hugely iconic New Zealand event that has gone from strength to strength. I’m very excited about coming to Fieldays and looking forward to meeting some good rural people; it’s going to be spectacular,” Emett says.