For the Love of Play

Ep 2. Alice Zaslavsky: We Are All Craving Connection

• Playgroup Victoria • Season 1 • Episode 2

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"We are all craving connection. We are all hungry for it. And I think that we’ve been desensitised to the value of it." 
 

In Conversation with Alice Zaslavsky – Author, Cook, TV and Radio Personality 

 

In this episode of For the Love of Play, we speak with author, chef, teacher, TV and radio personality, Alice Zaslavsky. 

Our conversation explores the innate human need for connection, cooking as a form of play and food as a celebration of culture. We talk about Alice’s childhood and how her Georgian heritage, as well as her childhood spent in the Soviet Union, has shaped her - and her zest for life! 

About Our Guest 

When you think of cooking, colour and contagious enthusiasm - Alice Zaslavsky is one of the first people who springs to mind! Her vibrant cookbooks light up the shelves of bookshops across the country, and she is a warm, familiar presence on ABC radio and television.  

Show Links 

Learn More About Playgroup Victoria 

Episode Credits 

Hosted by Mylie Nauendorf and Sinead Halliday. 

Interview conducted by Sinead Halliday. 

Edited by Jonathan Rivett. 

Mastering by James North Productions. 

Music by Selina Byrne. 

And thanks to our little friends Toby and Adelaide for voicing the intro. 

Enjoyed This Episode? 

Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a conversation. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with friends and family.  


 

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Mylie :

Playgroup Victoria acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land and community. We pay our respects to them, their cultures, and to the elders past and present.

Kids:

For the love of play. For the love of play. For the love of play.

Mylie :

For the love of play, an exploration of childhood, family, community, and belonging.

Alice Zaslavsky:

So if you're looking for an activity with your kids, grandkids, young people in your care, think of the kitchen as another playroom and just go in there and experiment. You don't even need to follow a recipe. You can just pick up the ingredients and say, what do we feel like doing today?

Mylie :

Hey, and I'm Sinead. And on today's episode, we are talking to someone who brings colour, creativity, and real joy to everything she touches. Sinead, who are we talking to today? Alice Savlaski. Ah, Alice. Recently I was walking into the Melbourne Flower and Garden show, and we just booked Alice to come and chat with us on the podcast, and we hadn't recorded it yet. And I was trying to explain to my husband about Alice and who she was, and I hear this voice, and I'm thinking, that that sounds like Alice. I'm literally talking about her right now. I look up and there she is, Alice, in a bright colour, up on the stage. It was just one of those perfect serendipitous moments, and I sort of said, Well, that's her up there. And there she was, talking about appleseeds, of course.

Sinead:

Classic Alice. And that's the thing about Alice. Not only is she interesting and led a very interesting life, she's interested in everything around her. She's deeply curious and attuned to the flavours of life, from the tiny seeds we plant to the slow nourishing process it takes for things to grow.

Mylie :

Yeah, and listening back to this conversation, one thing that Alice said that really stood out to me was that we are all craving connection.

Sinead:

Yeah, I love how she links that so beautifully to food and how food brings us together and allows us to share our cultures and allows us to live in a harmonious society.

Mylie :

Yeah, well, this conversation was just that warm and delicious. It made me hungry, and just like Alice herself, this combo is just full of colour, and we really hope that everyone enjoys it as much as we did recording it. So let's go. Here's our chat with Alice.

Sinead:

Alice Zavzlovsky lives her life in colour with a musicality, a true sensory aficionado, a zest seeker. In her roots there is an understory of instability growing up as a young child during the Soviet Union. Is it any wonder that Alice delights at the sight of bright vegetables plucking a fresh apple off a tree, pulling a vibrant dirt dusted carrot from the ground, catching the fragrance of herbs in the breeze? For Alice, she rejoices in the life and living of all that grows and gives. She dedicates her time to passing that on with an attuned ear and whole bodily dedication to encouraging children and families to embrace it all. Alice, welcome to our podcast. Ah, Sinead, what an introduction. Thank you for having me. Thank you for seeing me. It's a thrill to have you on today. Alice, to begin, I want to talk to you about cultural connection. In what ways does food, produce, and cooking allow us to express a connection to family, community, identity, and to one another?

Alice Zaslavsky:

I think that food uh is one of the most important and easiest ways to connect people, and particularly young people, with culture and community and each other because it's so multi-sensory and because it is so omnipresent. It's something that we think about every day, uh at the at the very least, you know, three times a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, if not all the time, if you're me or anything like me. But um considering food is one of the first ways that we connect with those who give us care. It's no wonder that it continues to be something that connects us back to that moment and to future moments that then weave the web of our experience and understanding of uh food and the food space.

Sinead:

You grew up in Georgia, a region that intersects with Eastern Europe and Asia. What kind of melting plot of flavours did you encounter as a child there?

Alice Zaslavsky:

Well, Georgia is uh at the crossroads of so many different cultures and cuisines, and also it's on the spice trail. So you've got the spices of the Middle East and Northern India all the way through through to the fresh herbs of Southeast Asia, you've got the cheeses and the breads of Eastern Europe as well. So uh as far as the melting pot of cuisines there, it can only be matched by a place like Australia that has uh, you know, as opposed to being at the crossroads, we are very much this island surrounded by water, and yet we are such a melting pot and a collection of people who have come here and have been here for millennia, who are all sharing through uh our cultures and cuisines.

Sinead:

So, what was your childhood like there? What stands out to you? What memories do you carry?

Alice Zaslavsky:

I think the memories that I carry most fondly are the ones connected to food. Most of my memories are attached to what I was eating or smelling or tasting at the time. And and that's not that's not just Georgia, that's my whole life. I'll think, oh yes, I remember in 2012 when I had that really delicious, you know, sort of like that. So when I was a kid, um I, you know, even though the Soviet Union was crumbling beneath our feet, you know, I was born in 1985. In 1991 was when the Soviet Union collapsed. So I was really at those last gasps of this great empire. And that empire, I think, prided itself on Georgia being the fruit bowl of that whole region. So we had these fertile soils, we had access to ingredients that other parts of the Soviet Union just didn't because we could grow them. So my grandfather um de Boyda had a a a Dutcher, which is like a weekend home, and he would plant uh his own fruits and vegetables and even grow his own grapes to make wine. So um, you know, we would have um sauerkraut um that would be made with cabbages that had grown in our garden. It was all very paddock to plate before it was trendy. So things like persimmons, figs, pomegranates all grew in my grandfather's garden. And so uh so many of my memories are about planting, growing, hands in the soil, nose in the flowers, and then preserving, you know, cooking or preserving that produce as well.

Sinead:

I've grown up in the country and that village that envelops you, I think that it can take a while to rebuild that when you moved. So I wonder what was your experience like when you immigrated? Were you about five?

Alice Zaslavsky:

Yeah, I was five and a half, yes. And so my experience, you know, was very much shaped by the way that my parents reacted. And they were in their mid-30s, you know, they were young. If I think about, I'm almost 40, and I think about what I would would have uh the the challenges that they would have faced coming here in 1991 with they had the language, but they certainly didn't have the network, and the language was very thickly accented in a a place that, you know, they certainly felt like outsiders, and even now their accents are still quite strong, even though that we've been here for almost, you know, 35 years. And yet um the thing that I most remember is that they in in um they imbued in us this sense of gratitude and wonder in the place that we had arrived as well. So we would um we first settled in Bondi, so in Sydney, right? And uh a lot of the refusings, a lot of the the Russian kind of um and Soviet migration ended up in around that area. And I remember we used to take walks in the evenings, and these were like balmy Sydney evenings. We arrived in October, so as the weather got warmer, I remember the smell of gardenia and jasmine as we walked these streets. And I remember um I didn't have many toys that I could pack. I had this one raggedy baby doll that my daughter now plays with. And um so the way that I would find toys was that so many of these streets had these huge piles of hard rubbish where like really nice toys were being thrown out because, you know, that that kids had gotten sick of them, or you know, there was one piece missing in a puzzle. And I that would be my treasure trove. And I the the sense of play that you talk about, you know, my parents would turn it into a game, like what what can you find in there? And I'd get so excited. There was like a French language game, um, there were puzzles and and toys and and uh uh building blocks, and there was just I know that it sounds um like oh, poor you, you know, but it but that's not how it felt at the time. It felt like an adventure.

Sinead:

And that's so much about what childhood is about, isn't it? It's often people talk about travelling to different communities and the less they have, it's almost like they're more under unburdened. You've got that imagination to lead the way.

Alice Zaslavsky:

Yeah, and I see it. Um our daughter is six, so you know, she's just a little older now than uh when I first arrived. And so it's a real mirror to how sentient and um present she is and how much she interprets and integrates as well. So I can see how much of who I am now was formed in those years and through the choices that my parents and and then grandparents also who came over a little later made because we grew up as a multi-generational home. So uh when I look at the way that that our daughter uh Hazel plays, she if there are ten toys in front of her, it there is a paralysis of choice, but if she's just got the one, then she will continue to play with that one toy and and create so much more within from her imagination as a result of that, you know. And that's been very intentional too. So we'll put a lot of her toys away. Or for example, she had her birthday recently, and we anyone who asked who was coming along what what does she need, we would say crafts. Anything crafty, because you can never get enough crafts, but she's got enough soft toys. Like, please, no more, no more teddies.

Sinead:

Things that you can really engage and create with. Um she has that creativity bent like her mother. Part of what makes you so fun, Alice, is your enthusiasm for fresh produce and things that might be overlooked. Leftovers that so often end up discarded and unused. Talk to us a bit about the beauty of shopping seasonally and the ways that we can change our perspective on what leftovers are. I know Nigel is very good at this. She has a fridge full of leftovers that would have otherwise gone to the bin. And this all is making a positive impact on the environment as well. So how can we start incorporating that from a young age and now every day?

Alice Zaslavsky:

It's all in the delivery. You know, I think about um Douglas McMaster, the founder of um Silo in in Brighton over in the UK, you know, the uh an incredible zero waste restaurant. Douglas talks about waste as a failure of the imagination. And I think that the leftover makeover is a really great opportunity for some imaginative play for cooks. And it starts in childhood. Over the weekend, I roasted a lamb shoulder and I had some leftovers, and we worked together as a family the next day to think about what we might do with them. We ended up making lamb souva burgers. It was so fun and so cute, and Hazy, you know, could taste how delicious it was. She made the garlic tsatsiki. She was very involved in that process. Rather than um feeling like what's left over from the meal is a burden or um a less than, I see it as a gift to future me or future us because it's already so many more steps closer to dinner. So I don't just think about being um, you know, having a food budget in terms of cost. I also think about it in terms of food budget of time. So one way in which I can save on that budget is by working smarter, not harder. So whether it's sweating twice the number, twice the onion that I need for one meal because then I'm 10 minutes closer to dinner the next meal, or whether, you know, I already know that I've boiled twice the amount of potatoes so that tomorrow night it's gonna be roast, you know, those potato those boiled potatoes are gonna be roasted, that's 40 minutes I'm gonna save. It's kind of sineid. It is the difference, I think, in a mindset shift. And when you grow up with um uh when you grow up with less in the fridge or less in the wallet to be able to buy new things, you will sooner use what you have first before you go out to get more. So I think part of um the tyranny of abundance, I think, that that we experience in a country like this one is that sometimes we don't realise um what we can do with what we've already got rather than heading out to get more.

Sinead:

Yeah, it's something that we could all incorporate uh that will save us time. I'm reminded of Jamie Oliver's food revolution series when he's with a group of six-year-olds and he starts asking them what the vegetables are and he holds up tomatoes and one of the little boys says, Oh, it's potatoes, isn't it? How can we from the early years start to get children involved in the preparing of food, learning about where it's derived from without that fear of, oh they're too young or they're a burden in the kitchen. How can we change the thinking of that so that we are bringing up a next generation who is educated about looking after their body and also looking after the environment and having it as a loving point of connection for them as well?

Alice Zaslavsky:

We like to think of it as the hard easy method. So I know that at the time, particularly when kids are uh in those toddler years where they say, I do, I do, and they do, but you know, make a mess. Just know that at the moment it is hard, yes, but over time it gets easier, and you can put a six-year-old on the dressing, or you can get them to top and tail your beans, whatever it is that you need them to do, because you've already done that, you've you've built that foundation. So I like to say that kids can do anything in the kitchen unless it's hot or sharp, and in those cases they need grown-up eyeballs. But the sooner they get into the kitchen and start uh engaging with the ingredients and engaging with the techniques, the sooner they become those grown-ups, you know. Um Hazy's already on a knife, like she's on Chef's knife. Last night she was using a small serrated um and cutting a carrot on a plate and nicked her finger. And she will never do that again, you know, because she kind of like you want them to step through it and you wanna we know the we know the benefit of risk taking, you know, of of learning to take calculated risks and giving them enough leeway to to make small mistakes. And I actually think that the kitchen is the perfect place for that to happen because uh very few mistakes are unrectifiable in the kitchen, you know, it's a very safe place to play as long as there's a grown-up supervising, you know. Um so yes, I think that helps. And also just know that you don't have to buy it if cost is a factor and you can't afford to buy that ingredient, just having them in the shop with you, seeing the tomatoes, having a conversation with those tomatoes about those tomatoes and saying, or smelling them and putting them down, that's still exposure. And we know that exposure leads to willingness to try, and we know that willingness to try means integrating into their diet. And we also know that growing is a really great way for them to get that sense of um that life cycle of the food and appreciating it more. So plant those tomato seeds, and you know you can harvest them. I remember chatting with Costa about this. You can just uh dry uh keep half a tomato, cook with one, keep half, harvest the seeds, dry them out on kitchen towel, go through that process with the kids and then plant those tomato seeds and grow your own. That's the magic of food. And I think if we want to talk to them about sustainability, we need to do it in a way that is not uh didactic, that it's fun and engaging and and curiosity building. And there's actually nothing more curiosity uh inducing than that idea of creating something from nothing, you know. And that's what something like the Kitchen Garden program, uh Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Programme does so well is that grow, cook and eat. Yeah, we love that.

Sinead:

Yeah. I want to ask you about when you were quite young and your refusal of a certain type of food. And I'm really interested in the link between food and our emotions, especially for children and how they express that and how we can support them to keep trying new things and not be forced sometimes when they they might be having a deeper experience going on. Do you want to talk to us a bit about that?

Alice Zaslavsky:

Yeah. Well when the as the Soviet Union was crumbling and as I was at this formative age, um, it's very hard for a child to find the words to express how they're feeling. And the way that I started to express that was through um my body actually starting to reject the food that I was being served at my kindergarten. And um it was a a visceral regurgitation because I couldn't find the words, so all I could bring up was the food. And what that also then triggered was my mum coming to pick me up and helping me feel safe again, walking me back to her workplace and making me lunch and reassuring me. And I think that mum really saved my relationship with food by doing that because she could have, as many people have experienced, admonished me, forced me to eat the food, and told me that what I m that my natural bodily response was somehow wrong, that you know, and therefore I would have internalized that I therefore was somehow wrong or bad. So we need to be really careful because kids think very uh in very concrete ways, very black and white thinking. So when we are um co essentially coercing them to try something, they don't they don't see that the reason that you're doing that is because you're trying to nourish them. What they see is that their natural instinct to be uh wary of a new thing is somehow bad. And it just mucks with their sense of agency and mucks with their with their relationship with food. So the best way that you can build a really healthy positive attitude to food within the young people in your care is speak neutrally about food. There's no such thing as good and bad foods, because if a child likes a bad food in inverted commas, then they will internalize that they therefore are bad. Very natural link for them to make. We think of that as grown-ups and go, that doesn't make sense, but oh, right, that's a penny drop. And even that idea, you know, the less you say the better. So rather than saying, why don't you try the broccoli, you just put it in front of them along with everything else you eat with when they eat, and over time that role modelling and that sense of FOMO will help to encourage them to try those new foods. And I guarantee you that they will try more the less you say, because kids are also naturally willful. They will want to do exactly what you don't want them to do. So, you know, it might even work better to say you can't have the broccoli. That's mine. We've tried that one out at home.

Sinead:

What about meal times and uh valuing that, taking the time to sit together, to eat slowly, to not be rushing. How important is that, do you think?

Alice Zaslavsky:

I think one of the biggest uh challenges for families in this day and age is that the pressures of the outside world mean that most families have both caregivers working. So what that then means is that mealtimes are no longer something that we all do together and often it's something that's done uh as an interstitial rather than as the main event. And the importance of mealtime, it doesn't have to be every night, it doesn't have to be every meal, but if you can set aside one meal a week that you sit around a table and you eat too the same food together in a shared style, so you don't put everything on their plates, everything's just out and they see you picking food, they've got the tongs, they can pick what they want to eat. And the conversation is about everything but the food. You know, unless of course you're exclaiming how delicious wow, isn't that fennel so yummy? Ooh, I love those fuzzy fronds. That's the way that you could be talking about food, or it might be a fun little story that you heard, but it's never like, oh, that's very good for you, you should give that a go. Treat your kids. Flavia Fayette Moore, Dr. Flavia Fayette Fayette Moore gave me a really good piece of advice. Um, she's uh uh an incredible thinker in the in the world, you know, almost like a culinary futurist. And she talks about the idea of treating kids like dinner guests at the table. So um, you know, I did a series for Radio National called Tiny Tasters. It's really worth listening to that episode with Flavia. Basically, she says, if you wouldn't say it to your dinner guest, like Sinead, if you came over to my house and I put down, I'm gonna continue to use broccoli because it's just such a cliche example, I put down a big bowl of broccoli and I say, now, Sinead, I've made you broccoli. It's very good for you. Look at these tiny trees. And oh, no, no, no, I'm not gonna give you any dessert, Sinead, until you try your broccoli. How does that make you feel, even as an adult? You know, so why are we doing that to our children? Treat them like dinner guests if you wouldn't say it to another dinner guest, give them the same sense of respect and agency to make their own choices and trust that eventually they will want to try it because they see you try it. And studies have shown that just one meal around the table not only improves relationships to food, it also improves the uh grades of the children in your care. So, you know, the school results improve, but also confidence building because you give them tasks to do around the table. Can you set the table for me? Can you load the dishwasher? All of those household chores and tasks that you set around food can also contribute to a holistic sense of self-esteem and well-being.

Sinead:

We want more of that. Especially for our children. You began your career as a teacher with a focus on humanities. But as is often the case in life, our true passions draw us ever closer, and you started incorporating food. How did the students respond?

Alice Zaslavsky:

You can imagine, I think everybody everybody's interested in food because everybody wants to eat deliciously. I think it's a universal language. So I found that they actually engaged better with my English history and geography lessons when food was involved. So that's why, you know, when we created Phenomenon, which is our food literacy toolkit, you know, it's free, it's available to all teachers, parents, you know, just go to phenomenon.com.au, it's all there, it's all yours. But we created it knowing that for any class in the curriculum, if you incorporate food, the students will engage better. And you're exposing them to more new foods and kind of piquing their curiosity and connecting them to the idea that food can and does shape us.

Sinead:

How wonderful. From there, you went off to TAFE and you did weekend courses, cooking courses for an entire year. An entire year. So what piqued that curiosity to keep showing up on top of your full-time job?

Alice Zaslavsky:

Well, I had this idea in mind that I wanted my year eights to do a Chef at home. I wanted them to do a curriculum kind of based around food and culture. And so this Chef at home course that I did at William Anglis TAFE was designed to kind of build up some of that curriculum that I was then going to incorporate. And um what encouraged me to keep showing up was actually the fact that I'd been told that my um by my heads of school that they didn't think the students would want to do the curriculum. They didn't think that food and culture was kind of interesting enough to a 13, 14-year-old. As far as I'm concerned, anyone can be interested in food. You've just got to find the way in. Fantastic.

Sinead:

A lot of people don't know this about you, I think, because you've come into our lives in the form of four best-selling cookbooks, and now you've got this great series on the ABC where you get some really interesting guests in. You had a brief little dalliance with Master Chef in season four. Yes. What surprised you about that?

Alice Zaslavsky:

Oh um, yes, that was thirteen years ago now, Sinead. I love that. And you're right, most people have come to me as, you know, through my cookbooks or through my columns or through my tele or on the radio, and they didn't even realise that I had, you know, visited the Master Chef kitchen as a contestant. Um what surprised me most about the experience, I think, is when you're in your own little bubble, you know, you you make friends who are friends of friends, everybody kind of has a similar outlook on life, similar values, similar interests. Um, and even though we were all interested in food, on a television program, you are cast to be as different to the people around you as possible. So I was in a house for s you know, uh over six months with 23 people who I would otherwise potentially never encounter in my life or engage with. And what that meant is that I was, you know, this was put into stark relief to me that we have no idea how some people show up in the world or what they think about. You know, I wake up in the morning and I'm like, yes, you know, I jump out of bed, I'm like, I'm there there are mornings where I do not do that, but most mornings I'm ready and going. I'm a very, as you said, zesty person. Some people would be like, Can you just not talk to me until I've had my coffee? Or uh they'd have a very pessimistic outlook, or they were uh their their pillars were just very different to mine. And so it reinforced to me that idea of sonder, you know, that every person has a rich inner world and a full life experience that you can't possibly imagine when you meet them on the street or when you interact with them. And you've really kind of got to respect that lived experience and and honor it as well.

Sinead:

Wow. That see, that's the thing. When you're thinking as a parent and uh you might be a bit trepidatious about turning up to a playgroup or talking to the parents outside of kindergarten or you've got a newborn and you think, I just can't today. What is the benefit of giving yourself that little push to go?

Alice Zaslavsky:

You're so right. You know, that was actually the best piece of advice I I gave Hazel on her first day of prep is I said, you know, I know you're nervous. This was the night before, I know you're nervous, but your teacher will be nervous too. And I'm sure that the other kids in your class will be feeling trepidatious about turning up. So just know that you're all in that place and the best thing that you can do is be kind and be open-hearted and smile and be friendly with everyone because they'll appreciate it. And I think that I gay I give myself that same advice every day at school drop-off is um, you know, parents walking past, even if you don't know them, even if you've never seen them before, give them a smile and a hello and a wave, because we are all craving connection, like we are all hungry for it. And I think that we've been um desensitized to the the value of it. And when you it is so simple, when you smile at a person and they smile back, it's actually um the so invigorating. And if you are having a a difficult time, particularly in those early years where you feel like you alone are the only one who are who could possibly be experiencing this, particularly you know, at 3 a.m. when you're Googling, Doctor Googling, what's wrong with my baby, or whatever it is, the reason that you want to turn up and be at play group or you know, go to your um uh go to your local play center and connect with others is because it's so reassuring. We are all specs in, you know, for a brief moment in time in this place together, and every single interaction is an opportunity to gain and glean and connect, not just with that person, but also back with yourself and back with the higher purpose and higher, you know, your higher self, uh, which I know is really hard when you're sleep deprived and when you feel like all you want to do is crawl into a little ball because you're just all out of puff. But it actually can really be advantageous to give that last piece of puff back out into the world because it'll come back to you.

Sinead:

What was your experience like as a young mum when you had your first child?

Alice Zaslavsky:

Yeah, so when I mean um Hazy's um six now, and when um when I first kind of in the early months of of of newborn fog, we were living uh with my parents, and so I had the support of that multi-generational the same way that my parents did with my grandparents. My parents were there to offer, you know, like it wasn't always useful, like it was like it was their own experience, but at the very least, they kind of gave this sense that this too shall pass. You know, I was much better able to um empathize and appreciate my mum and how patient she was with me when I was a teenager, like the fact that she put up with my shiitake when she also had to be, you know, like she clearly had uh reared me to that point, and yet was patient enough with with my ratty teenaged dam. So my experience, I would say um the reason why I was not lonely is because I had a village around me, you know, and I'm really fortunate because I know that that's not a necessarily as common as it should be. So, and my husband as well, um, you know, we work together. So we were together in that. And uh Hazy would scream for hours in the afternoons, just like and so he would put her um in an in a an ergo baby and just wear her and walk the streets like for hours. You got super fit. Oh yeah. That's it, that's it. And she's still like she's such a mover and so physical, and um, and I think you know, that idea of like we really cannot do it alone. We need an all-in if we can.

Sinead:

I've read a lot about the nourishment of certain different foods, and we have all of this noise coming at us about what sh we should be eating and what different food maps and all this type of thing. How much do you identify food as a type of medicine to facilitate our well-being? And it can it be that simple in that we're we just if we refocus on feeding our body real food, then we can have that energy, or we can help with our iron, or we can we were just having this conversation this morning.

Alice Zaslavsky:

I was having this conversation with my husband, like that idea of food as medicine, because it used to um be very sub for subversive to say. I think now it is becoming more mainstream that idea, because we're gaining more and more insight into the benefits of each food, even the colours that we eat, um, even you know, the understanding the microbiome and how feeding the good bacteria in our gut can really help to not just help our digestive system but also go all the way back up into our big brain, right? It's our little brain, big brain. So all of those kind of aspects are really, really pertinent. Um but it it's almost like understanding food is like an onion, you know, it's layers, layers upon layers. And you need to have the bandwidth to actually be able to um comprehend, you know, not every sweet potato is gonna be as nutritious as another sweet potato because the soil health of where that one's grown versus that one, all of that stuff, as you say, can get really, really noisy and overwhelming. And so then you just go, you know what? I am intimidated and I am overwhelmed, so I'm just gonna go with what I know. So the best advice that I can give you to like get rid of all the noise is think about how many colours you can eat in your day. You know, have like that idea of eat the rainbow is something that you can bring in because there's so many colours in Mother Nature, and she gives you the colours seasonally that you need. So whether that is, you know, in the depths of winter there's so much citrus because of the vitamin C, and there's the green leafies that will give you the iron, but you need the citrus in order to access it. But hey, green leafies taste so good with the acid of a really nice, you know, vinegar or squirt of lemon. It's kind of it's going back to eating with your eyes, using your senses. If something tastes good to you, that idea of I I try to avoid labels like real food and and whole food, like um, just because I think that we can also tie ourselves up in knots in those ideas. Sometimes they can feel a little bit binary too, you know, like I like sometimes I can feel like I'm tying myself up in knots, trying to kind of be as democratic about it as possible. But all I can say is that the closer to nature that you can be with the way that you cook, the way that you grow, you know, if you can grow some of your own herbs and things and get the kids into the garden, even um the microbiome is um the the getting your hands into the soil can help. And there's like even from a mood-boosting benefit, having your hands in the soil, Costa Georgiartis talks about this all the time, is so beautiful as well. So eat as many colours as you can, go with your gut, go with your common sense and your senses, and you will be okay.

Sinead:

Yes. I also I remember speaking with Dr. Sandro DeMaye. Oh yes, and he said the same thing that you didn't eat the rainbow, and he said, each week when you go shopping, try and choose something different that you haven't had the week before. Right. You're having that variety as well.

Alice Zaslavsky:

Um Yeah, we we um because we're creatures of habit. And if you look at the way that seasonally we should be eating, celebrate the seasons, celebrate them with your kids as well. You know, when um a fruit, say persimmons are in season at the moment, my uh so Hazel loves persimmons, but she knows that they're here for a good time, not a long time. And when she asks me for a persimmon in a month's time, I'll say, nope, they're not around, and I'll say, because, and she'll say they're not in season. And so it kind of encourages that sense of FOMO again that like eat it while it's good, eat it while it's cheap, too. You know, when it's seasonal, it's also more sustainable for your hip pocket as well as for the environment, because the food miles are low, the um, you know, you've got it in in surplus in high supply, so that's when you should be trying those new things.

Sinead:

And it makes you happy as well, doesn't it? I've got a local deli and they do a twenty dollar fruit and veg basket. Great. And you can mix and match with what's there. And you go home and it's like you've got a artwork. Yeah. You know, all of the bright colours and all of the fragrances, it's a real gift, isn't it?

Alice Zaslavsky:

It is, it is, and it's a gift from Mother Nature. So the least that we can do is take the gift and craft something beautiful with it. And I think it that comes back to knowledge and wisdom. So if you don't have that, just know that like we're living in the information age. If you've got it something that you don't know what it actually even is called, use your smart device, scan it. Google image search will tell you, oh, it's a choco, or oh, that's a fennel. You know, the there are there are ways now. And if worst comes to worst, I will occasionally get a photo in my inbox where someone will say, I got this in my produce box. What is it? And I'll tell them, it's a solariac.

Sinead:

Yeah, full of surprises all the time. And you've got your book for young readers as well, which is Alice's Food A to Z or Z, depending where you're from. So what's your hope for that? And has that got it for anyone who hasn't seen Alice's books? If you walk into any good bookstore, just look for the colour and the vibrancy. And even your Impraise of Veg, which we have here this morning, all colour-coded. So with that book for the kids, how's that different? What's what's that got in it?

Alice Zaslavsky:

The the book for the kids was the first one that I wrote. And that was actually the one that was essentially my food and culture elective, but as a textbook, you know, and it's still out, which is amazing. Um, you know, five When did I write that? Oh my goodness, ten years ago. It's got its tenth anniversary this year. That's awesome. I just realized that. Um so you know, ten years ago I was bouncing around with this A to Z of food, apples, asparagus, avocado. And my hope for that book was that it would pique curiosity and it would give parents and grandparents something else to say about fruits and vegetables, um, and and all foods actually in that book. Because I think sometimes we just fall into our own habits with what we say about food because that's what we were told, our own scripts. Whereas, you know, did you know that well that asparagus we, for example, like the smell of asparagus we is not something that everybody experiences. So not everybody gets um the same the same experience of asparagus we and so I say to people who do, how lucky are you? You're a super sniffer.

Sinead:

Super sniffer. I love it. In one of your books, you write, the kitchen is where fun can be had, creativity flex and risk taken. Could we add to that a sense of play, regardless of age? How how vital is play in your life, Alice?

Alice Zaslavsky:

Oh, I think you can probably guess that I am a very playful person. Play is actually something that's vital in my writing. If I um when I write cookbooks or recipes columns, I find writing a little bit dreary because it's a lot of sitting down. So I have to dangle the carrot for myself. I have to create a sense of play where I'm either planting little Easter eggs for my readers that I know are going to delight them in what I say, you know. Maybe it might be a quote from a book or a movie or, you know, some kind of pop culture reference, which always brings a smile to my dial. Or it might be, you know, in my latest book salad for days, I've got a little haiku that I've hidden in one of the recipes. And so that kind of motivates me. That playfulness, holding things lightly is also a really um, I think it's a very useful way to show up in the world because sometimes too much brevity just weighs us down. And a little bit of levity just kind of helps to remind you that this too shall pass, you know, you are not the only one that is experiencing this right now or ever in the world, and build up that sense of resilience through play, through risk taking risks. And I think that that's actually the benefit of play too is like it's okay to uh play, to fail, to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start again.

Sinead:

And connecting us, and I love the Play Doh quote, which is you can learn more about someone in an hour of play than a year of conversation.

Alice Zaslavsky:

Or the beautiful quote.

Sinead:

I like that, I'm gonna store it away. I think it it just represents that play allows us to be ourselves. Uh and it seemed like through that MasterChef experience you had that reminded you of that, to be yourself, and that's why people will love you. So everyone out there who's listening, we encourage you to be yourselves. And Alice, it's been a joy having you on today. We'd love to have you back again. And I just wanted to end on a quote that you have on your website, which is food doesn't just open mouths, it opens minds too. Preach.

Alice Zaslavsky:

Yeah. I think that uh it opens mouths and it it opens minds and it opens hearts. And I can learn so much about a person when they come into my kitchen and play with me. You know, I treat cooking as play as well. So if you're looking for an activity with your kids, grandkids, young people in your care, think of the kitchen as another playroom and just go in there and experiment. You don't even need to follow a recipe. You can just pick up the ingredients and say, what do we feel like doing today?

Sinead:

What do we feel like doing today? Let's get on with that. I say, thank you, Alice. Thank you, Shade!

Mylie :

Thanks for listening to this episode of For the Love of Play, and a big thanks to Alice for her time. For the Love of Play is a podcast produced by Playgroup Victoria. This episode was hosted by me, Miley Naulendorf. Sinead Halliday was my co-host, and as always, Sinead conducted the interview. The episode was edited by Jonathan Ravette and music performed by Selena Byrne. This was the second episode of season one. In episode three, Sinead speaks with children's entertainer, author, television presenter, all-round colourful superstar Emma Watkins, better known as Emma Mema. We hope you can join us for that conversation then. Before we go, if you're interested in finding out more about Playgroup, head over to our website www.playgroup.org.au. And if you're in Victoria and would like to find a playgroup near you, take a look at our find a playgroup page, www.playgroup.org.au forward slash find.

Kids:

See ya That's all for now.