--- Learn endless cooking tips and tricks on The Cook Up with Adam Liaw which airs weeknights on SBS Food at 7.00pm and 10.00pm, or stream it free on SBS On Demand. Catch Julia Zemiro in the 'home delivery' and 'colour' episodes. ---
Julia Zemiro is best known as the host of SBS hits RocKwiz and Eurovision and ABC's Home Delivery, but her first job as a waitress is where it all began.
Zemiro's family moved from the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence, to Australia when she was two years' old. Her French father, Claude Zemiro, worked as a maître d' at an esteemed French restaurant named Le Trianon in Kings Cross in Sydney, before opening his own, called Home Cooking Restaurant on Bondi Road, in the early 1970s. Claude's Bondi restaurant lived up to its name and served humble, home-cooked food. For $1.20, customers could get a three-course meal, including vegetable soup, a roast and a steamed pudding with custard for dessert.
This English fare was almost the opposite of the light and fresh French food that Zemiro's family cooked at home.
"It was a lot of tomatoes, zucchini, vegetables, fish, olive oil… that Mediterranean kind of diet," she recalls. "French kids don't automatically go for chocolate; they'll go for a pear or apricot."
Zemiro is grateful for this French upbringing since it taught her the beauty of simple and well-balanced meals.
Julia Zemiro as a child. Source: Supplied
"The French have a great way of balancing. You have a nice little entrée, and it might just be asparagus, steamed with a bit of Hollandaise or salad dressing. Then you'll have a main meal that has a bit of protein and some vegetables. Then you might have a bit of cheese, and fruit or yogurt," Zemiro explains. "What happens is because you've had a bit of protein, a bit of veggie, a bit of sweet and a bit of sour, you're completely satisfied."
She applies this French way of eating to everyday meals and loves embracing vegetables in all their rainbow glory.
"That cliche idea that there is a local fruit and veg market in every French town square is true," Zemiro says. "You get really beautiful produce and vegetables are part of every meal."
Claude appreciated having access to fresh produce in Australia and would make vegetables the star of every home dinner. Radishes with butter or salt and whole artichokes with vinaigrette were his two signature salads, and this vinaigrette was the first thing she learnt to make.
Zemiro says the French have a great way of balancing meals like the nicoise salad Source: Adam Liaw
That cliche idea that there is a local fruit and veg market in every French town square is true.
Zemiro's kitchen skills increased after her parents separated at age nine. During the week, she lived with her mother, Jane Zemiro, who often came home from work late and thus, taught her daughter simple recipes to prepare on those nights. Grilled tuna became Zemiro's speciality, accompanied by a simple salad, steamed potatoes and beans, which she fried in butter and garlic.
"With dad I could see how it was done, but I think mum actually taught me more how to prepare food, how long it can keep and not keep and all those little tricks," she says.
Zemiro's interest in food and hospitality expanded when she began waitressing at her father's restaurant. Little did she know then that the customer-service skills and confidence that she developed over those years would provide invaluable to her career as a television host and media personality.
Zemiro embraces simplicity on The Cook Up with leeks in vinaigrette Source: Adam Liaw
"I honestly believe that my days waitressing is partly what trained me to deal with the general public when I do a show like RocKwiz or Home Delivery or Eurovision, where you have to deal with people and talk to them and not be nervous to just go up to a table and say hello," she reflects.
Ultimately, French upbringing and a love of food served as the base for Zemiro's career, and she continues to apply these lessons from the dinner table in many areas of her life.
