Author's f-words: food, family, friends

Nicky Pellegrino has pretty much decided to stick with what she knows.
When she thought she was writing about friendship, family and food, people tagged her novels romantic chick-lit. When she decided to write a love story, it also became a story about friendship, family and food.
Those three elements - along with Italy - are at the core of each of her novels, including best-sellers like Recipe For Life, The Italian Wedding and now The Villa Girls.
There is a fair bit of Pellegrino in the main character of the thoroughly enjoyable The Villa Girls. Just as the main character Rosie is quiet, retiring and feels like the odd one out, Pellegrino was shy and retiring as a lanky, flame-haired youngster and often felt like the odd one out.
Just like Rosie, Pellegrino questions why people are expected to be goal-driven and wonders what's wrong with just being happy with the life you've created for yourself.
And just like Rosie, Pellegrino has sometimes struggled with her relationship with food, as many women do. Rosie takes to comfort-eating and when she finds herself losing control, goes to the other extreme and there, Pellegrino admits, they differ.
"That strict control bit eludes me completely, but as you get a bit older, body shape becomes less important and you take a bit more of a healthy attitude to food; you just enjoy it," she says. "But I remember at university raiding the chocolate bar machine and eating fish and chips and other terrible things in vast quantities."
These days, Pellegrino grows her own vegetables and a perfect evening consists of cooking home-grown goodies and sharing them with friends over a few glasses of wine.
"I love people coming over and sharing food. Food, to me, is very much a way to show people you care about them; it links you with people, it's comforting in that sort of way."
Pellegrino's love for Italian food and enjoyment of friendship permeate her novels.
She was born and raised in Liverpool, but has fond memories of summers spent with boisterous relatives in Italy and developed a passion for the food which quite literally flavours her stories.
Her father is Italian and he met her mum in Rome in the late 1950s. Pellegrino says they remain a "handy resource", particularly for her next novel, which is set in the 1950s and requires considerable research.
The only other thing she'll reveal about it is that it fictionalises a real person's life. The story is still in its early stages and Pellegrino says if things don't come together, she may abandon the story altogether - not that she's ever done that before.
She's always finished what she's started, but the insecurities of her early days as a writer remain with her.
"You never know if it's going to succeed ... I can't understand how I managed to write the others, there are always doubts - can I sustain it for a whole novel? Is it interesting? Will people care? ... there's always that self-doubt."
Pellegrino met her Kiwi husband Carne (which means "meat" in Italian) at a friend's wedding in the Wairarapa and, after a long-distance relationship, made the move from the UK.
"I couldn't find a boyfriend in England, I was too tall and bossy and he seemed the only person who was interested in me," she jokes.
Sixteen years later, they live at Pt Chevalier in Auckland, handy to the motorway which takes her and her canine companion Charlie to wild Muriwai Beach where she rides her chestnut horse, Boxer.
All in all then, not a bad life for a former introvert who used to feel so awkward she spent her teen years avoiding parties, choosing instead to hole up in her room with her nose in a book. What's wrong, indeed, with being happy with the life you've got?

A FAVOURITE RECIPE

Nicky Pellegrino's Italian recipe
Beppi Martinelli, the Italian papa from The Villa Girls and The Italian Wedding, reluctantly shares the recipe for his favourite dish. This is possibly the most fattening thing you can do to a vegetable!
Beppi's  Melanzane alla Parmigiana
2 eggplants
1 onion
1 jar of tomato passata
2 eggs
Plain flour
Salt and pepper
Basil
Grated parmesan and parmigiano
A little grated mozzarella
Olive oil
Vegetable oil
This is my way of doing it. The best way.
First you cut the eggplants into rounds - not too thick but not too thin. Salt them and leave in a colander to drain for an hour. Then wash off the salt with cold water and pat dry with a clean cloth.
Now make the Napolitano sauce. Finely chop an onion, fry in olive oil and then pour on the jar of tomato passata.
Add basil, a little salt and pepper and then simmer the sauce for 20 minutes. Now your kitchen is smelling wonderful, eh?
Next, beat two eggs with a little salt and pepper. Dip both sides of each eggplant round in plain flour, then in the beaten egg, and shallow-fry in vegetable oil until golden-brown. Oh, and don't be mean with the oil. Pour it from the bottle properly ... don't just dribble it in.
Layer the fried eggplant in a shallow oven dish - four layers maximum - and cover each layer with some Napolitano sauce and plenty of grated parmigiano. Sprinkle mozzarella on the top and bake for 20 minutes at about 150C.