KEY POINTS:
Tamasin Day-Lewis has just returned from a 10km jog, which is a surprise.
It's a dismal English morning and surely one of the world's greatest food writers should be hovering over a pot of potage crecy instead of romping through the countryside. But like her fail-safe recipes, this ritualistic constitutional is carefully considered.
"Oh I only do it so that I can eat as much as I like without worrying about it, why else go through the cold, rain, pain? Dieting is the most miserable waste of time," maintains the 53-year-old London-born writer and mother-of-three.
A love affair with food, which blossomed during her student years at Cambridge University, explains why Day-Lewis jogs up to four times a week and has completed three marathons.
"Still, if you really want to lose weight," she chortles on the phone from her country home in Somerset, "there are easier ways - fall in love or get dumped."
Raven-haired Day-Lewis - yes, the older sister of actor Daniel - is scheduled to be a keynote speaker next month at Savour New Zealand's three-day foodie event in Christchurch. Even if she did read English at Cambridge and has a poet laureate as a father, Day-Lewis won't be consulting any travel guides for her first visit Downunder.
"I only know the obvious - the raw ingredients - about your country. And that's all I want to know before arriving. I'm coming to explore unknown territory - it's what I do best."
She is the author of nine books, including the hefty tome Tamasin's Kitchen Bible, which fellow cook Nigel Slater reverently said "will never leave my kitchen". She is renowned for her astute observations and a lyrical turn of phrase in her books, television appearances and columns in The Daily Telegraph and Vanity Fair. Her book, West of Ireland Summers, was a collection of favourite recipes taken from, and inspired by, her childhood in County Mayo.
In Tamasin's Kitchen Bible, she laments the decline of Sunday family roasts and the rise of the microwave dinner.
"The ritual of sitting round the table with food, drink and conversation - the greatest act of civilisation in a civilised world - has been replaced by a solitary, silent supper tray of zapped TV dinner balanced on the knees."
Day-Lewis is frequently tagged a food purist who promotes organic and regional produce, and she's expected to discuss these topics at Savour New Zealand. This morning, she's bristling with disdain for the "industrial scale organics" which remove old-fashioned farming methods from the process. And don't get her started on the current obsession with food provenance.
"There are some people who will only eat a chicken from a certain field. It's all up its own arse - all I want is a good dinner."
Day-Lewis has just completed her 10th book. "It's a new genre - it's not a recipe-led book, more of a food romance. It's like a road movie where I explore the people and the places I've visited over the past year. There are lyrical and funny chapters - and the glue that cements them together is food."
Whimsically titled Where shall we go to dinner? A Food Romance, the author describes her romp (often accompanied by her American boyfriend) through Europe and San Francisco, detailing her exchanges with foodie characters, from food producers to restaurant owners. Curiously, the culinary haven of Venice proved the most challenging.
"I had imagined that Venice would be the most difficult to write about because there are so many preconceived notions and ideas. So I set out in a new direction and discovered new adventures."
A producer and director for 15 years, Day-Lewis has worked on documentaries on many subjects, from the pain of adultery to teen roller-skaters.
She also presented a series for UKTV Food from her family home in Somerset and although the food was faultless, one critic grumbled that it was "frightfully plummy".
True to form, Day-Lewis is blunt about her on-camera appeal.
"I never wanted to be on screen. I'm just not a performer. It may be the era of the celebrity chef but I have no desire to be one. Besides I'm not a chef who says [expletive] every second sentence."
Day-Lewis gets more pleasure from entertaining people with her eloquent prose.
"I just want people to read my books and I hope they read them like they would a novel."
It seems words really are the essential ingredient.
"I'm a storyteller, not a recipe writer."
Savour New Zealand is held in Christchurch, April 27-29. For information see savournewzealand.co.nz
