Watching the cook perform her signature pasta twirl up close, one appreciates the elegantly simple approach to cooking which made her a household name.
“Choose a book and tell me what to make,” she says. “I really, really, really love cooking. But I have a real problem deciding. So you need to give me page numbers.” Hay, 54, is at once familiar – I have been making her recipes for almost 20 years, trying in vain to replicate her signature pasta twirl – and unknown to me. I’d heard she can be distant and hard to read.
She shared a studio with photographers including William Meppem, a longtime collaborator. “I was sorting through some Polaroids on one side, and on the other, which we rented out for fashion shoots, was Jane Roarty,” says Hay. “And she came over and said, ‘What are you doing? What’s your name? What’s this about?’ And I thought, who is this bossy woman with the sharp bob?” Hay laughs. A few days later Roarty reappeared with a request – or maybe a demand – to take on the food pages of.
In 2001, she launched her eponymous magazine. At its height, she published six issues a year, as well as four issues of a spinoff,in the UK. Subscribers from 82 countries received the magazine. The look of her food became ubiquitous and instantly recognisable – thrown together, but perfectly so. She licensed products including bakeware and box mixes and began working with HarperCollins on cookbooks .
She doesn’t remember the first issue well. “I was working too hard on the second issue. Once you get on the magazine train, you’re on the train forever.” In the taxi home from the launch party, she saw the cover on a bus shelter ad. “I thought, ‘What have I done?’ I have to do this all over again.’” Attention to detail was key. “We would go to Lidcombe to check the printed pages every month. I had my head down. I wanted to make it the best publication I possibly could.
“It’s nice”, she says, chuckling gently, “to know that people care. With food, you become involved in people’s lives. They’re cooking your recipes; they think they know you. And they sort of do.” Food has changed remarkably since Hay became a household name in the early 2000s. She recalls giving instructions to find coriander in Chinatown; now, kids can get sushi from the school canteen. Still, her approach is gentle. “I’m writing for home cooks. I can’t really change my recipes until ingredients become mainstream.” “Two in three households in the US have an air fryer. Sometimes you can’t avoid something.” The Hay houshehold has one, thanks to her teenage sons.
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