Allyson Gofton with her children Jean-Luc and Olive-Rose. Photo / Richard Robinson
Wanted: down-to-earth foodie with a penchant for tinned food. Must know at least 12 recipes involving frozen potato.
Food giant Watties will start hunting for a new Food in a Minute host next week, after announcing long-time presenter Allyson Gofton was leaving to spend more time with her
children.
The one-minute show has made a household name of Gofton, who has spent the past 12 years giving us speedy meal demonstrations before One News.
Now the busy mum-of-two says it's time for someone younger to take over, so she can spend more time with Olive-Rose, 18 months, and Jean-Luc, 5.
Gofton, 47, has been around since the inception of the show, when a canny advertiser realised how many people reached the end of the day with no idea what to cook for dinner.
The former chef says her replacement doesn't need cooking or television training, but must be happy to cook with a can of tomato soup.
"They've got to love cooking for middle New Zealand _ no pre-conceived ideas about cooking with pesto and sun-dried tomatoes," she said. "It's not always what you want to do or what you might like to eat personally."
Gofton says the hardest thing is making meals from the sometimes incompatible ingredients advertisers put forward for promotion.
"It's like a jigsaw puzzle."
The advertorial format has produced some interesting recipes over the years _ most famously the baked beans and chip pizza.
Asked about the pizza, Gofton says she was asked to test it for Watties, which at the time was considering launching a similar product in the New Zealand market. Viewer feedback was so negative they decided not to go ahead.
But for every flop, there's been a raging success.
Gofton says recipes from the first season, like potato pom-poms on a cottage pie, are still the ones that stand up the best.
She maintains that a dessert involving mayonnaise is still a good one _ as long as you don't use blue cheese mayo.
Gofton will also give up writing her food column for Next magazine.
But with a busy husband and "plenty of ideas" to work on at her Meadowbank home, she's just looking forward to having more time.
She will continue to host Food in a Minute until January 26.
