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Chef Cheryl: Cheryl Amor in her kitchen in Gisborne with copies of MiNDFOOD and a plate of beigli.

The next time you pick up a copy of MiNDFOOD and drool over the gorgeous “foodtography” and recipes therein, spare a thought for the people behind the scenes, the team who design, create, test and photograph the mouth-watering dishes presented in the glossy pages of the up-market magazine.

Veteran chef Cheryl Amor is responsible for testing MiNDFOOD’s recipes, which are composed by food stylist Sally Cameron. Both women are from Gisborne. Carolyn Robertson from Wellington photographs the process and the finished product.

Some recipes are MiNDFOOD owner Michelle McHugh’s own creations, says Cheryl whose long association with the Gisborne cuisine scene began when she established Bistro 21, Gisborne’s first continental-style restaurant, 44 years ago.

“I opened Bistro 21 on September 3, 1971 in a little cottage where KFC now stands,” says Cheryl. “I was only 22 and had just arrived home after four years working in the hospitality industry in Melbourne.

“For the first three years, I did pretty much everything myself — the shopping, food prep, cooking, cleaning and laundry. My father, Selwyn Gane, helped out with the bookwork, my sister Dianne, an economics teacher, did the wages and hostessing, and Allison and Marty Brame worked in the kitchen during opening hours.

““The name Bistro 21 had no real significance, other than the fact I thought of it when I was 21. I just needed a name in a hurry.”

Gourmet cuisine in GisborneThere were other restaurants in Gisborne at the time but Bistro 21 was the first to offer gourmet cuisine, ideas Cheryl brought back from some of Melbourne’s top restaurants.

“I ran the restaurant for six years, working crazy 16-hour days. It was a very successful business. I would probably still be there if I hadn’t got married,” she says with a laugh.

In the years that followed, Cheryl worked as a chef at the Arnhem Restaurant (now the Marina), Pete’s on the Beach, Seaview Restaurant, the EIT Tairawhiti café and numerous other establishments that needed a chef. She also made sandwiches for Wards on Grey Street and cakes for the airport café.

After marrying Ballance Street butcher Frank Amor and giving birth to their son Lincoln, Cheryl continued working part-time, thanks to the babysitting services of her mother.

Then at the age of 65 and semi-retired, along came the opportunity to work for MiNDFOOD.

“Out of the blue last Christmas, Sally approached me with the idea of test-cooking recipes for MiNDFOOD and preparing the dishes to be photographed.

“Sally’s mother, Margaret, used to work for me as a waitress years ago at Bistro 21 so I’ve known Sally since she was a toddler.

“I had time on my hands and thought this sounded like an interesting new way to use my cooking skills so I agreed to give it a go.”

Variety and creativityNow six months into the job, Cheryl is loving the variety and creativity of the work.

“Once a month, Sally brings her recipes and all the ingredients to my place. I prepare the dish, checking that all the ingredients are correct, Carolyn takes the photos and Sally does the styling and writes the words.

“It’s a relaxing, low-stress, enjoyable job after the demands of working in restaurant kitchens where there is always time pressure.”

The assignments take one or two days, depending on the number and complexity of the recipes Michelle and Sally have chosen for the month. During the feijoa season she prepared roast pork with feijoa stuffing, feijoa cake and feijoa preserves.

Reflecting on more than four decades working with food, Cheryl says she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in cooking as a youngster.

“I was an outside girl, helping dad in the garden, mowing lawns, washing cars, anything outside in the fresh air. My sister Dianne was the one inside cooking with mum,” she says.

As a young woman, Cheryl belonged to the Gisborne Ladies Surf Club and was involved in long-distance swimming. She holds the distinction of being the first female to swim from Young Nicks Head to Waikanae Beach, a distance of seven miles.

“I was 15 at the time and recall being given a pair of bath towels as a prize,” she says.

“As kids in the 1950s, we used to have river races, swimming a mile and a half mile up the Waimata, starting where the Marina Restaurant now stands.”

Watties after schoolCheryl’s first food-related job was at Watties where she worked as a laboratory assistant when she left school.

At 17½, she went to Melbourne and worked as a waitress for a number of restaurants there including the prestigious Hobnob Restaurant.

“Hobnob was the top restaurant in Melbourne, owned by the Colemans, a well-known Irish couple. It was there that I first began to take a real interest in food and wine.

“The boss’s son Paul used to work in the restaurant in his university holidays and we became good mates. He taught me a lot about wine and how to make cocktails. I still make whisky sours according to his recipe: whisky, lemon juice, Cointreau, sugar, bitters and egg white. It’s my favourite drink.”

Cheryl says she also learned a lot from Antonio, the Italian head chef at Hobnob.

“Antonio never lost his temper. He was very cool-headed in the kitchen. Everything had its place. His kitchen was very orderly.

“I loved his veal dishes, especially his veal parmigiana and côtelette à la bolognaise, dishes I later introduced to Gisborne.

“But I couldn’t get veal in Gisborne so had to make do with young beef.”

She also worked at the newly-opened Sabra, the first restaurant in Melbourne to serve Jewish and Middle Eastern food. It was at there at the age of about 20 that Cheryl moved from waitressing to the kitchen.

“Sabra had just opened and a Syrian guy called Eddie was working behind a bar making falafels. The whole Jewish population of Melbourne used to come to Sabra for Eddie’s falafel sandwiches.”

Meanwhile, Cheryl was in the main kitchen out the back, doing food preparation and learning recipes and skills she would later apply in her own restaurant.

“During this time I boarded with a Hungarian couple, Julika and Tibby. Julika was an amazing cook and I still make her beigli (a Christmas treat) and chestnut puree, both delicious Hungarian recipes.”

William Angliss School of CateringWhile in Melbourne, Cheryl enrolled for a one-year course at the William Angliss School of Catering.

“I enjoyed it but I was young and silly and didn’t finish the course. I was trying to study full-time and hold down multiple jobs. Eventually work won and I quit the course. In retrospect, I probably learned more on the job than I ever would have on the course.”

These days, apart from her MiNDFOOD work, Cheryl does the baking at PBC two days a week which is just the right amount of work, she says.

After having treatment for breast cancer in her 50s, Cheryl suffers from lupus, an auto-immune disease which makes lifting and knife-wielding difficult.

For a while she missed the pressure and urgency of restaurant kitchens but now she enjoys a quieter more peaceful life.

“I breathe a sigh of relief to be able to cook what I want to at a leisurely pace.”

Swimming is still a big part of her life but nowadays it is in her lap-pool not the sea.

“I learnt a lot of self-discipline from swimming as a youngster — the will to go on, to do better, try harder, set goals — things that have helped me in later life,” Cheryl says.

She also enjoys reading, walking, preserving and cooking at home. Among her favourite recipes are those she learned many years ago from her friend Julika including beigli, which is in our Food section this week.