As soon as I enter the bustling cafe where we’re meeting, she’s up from the table and trapping me in a warm embrace, her mass of dark curls brushing against my cheek.
asserted
mass → enter → cheek
Here are some other things the 38-year-old Italian teacher and food blogger turned cookbook author is fond of: tennis (both playing and watching), lamps, and headscarves.
asserted
teacher → turn → ?
She really loves peaches.
asserted
She → love → peaches
“I do like a peach; I think I mention one in all of my books,” she says over lunch at Florian in Melbourne’s Carlton North, not far from the home she shares with her Japanese-born husband of 12 years, Nori, and their three boys, aged 11, six and nine months.
asserted
she → like → years
In fact, it was here they recently road-tested eating out as a family of five.
asserted
they → test → five
“It was kind of chaotic, but it was cute,” she says, laughing.
asserted
she → say → ?
Enjoying food, both making and eating it, is something she’s keen to instil in her children while they are young.
asserted
they → enjoy → children
Her strongest food memory is from when she was 22 and working in Italy as an au pair.
asserted
she → work → pair
“The family would make this cherry tomato pasta with garlic and basil with paccheri [a short, tubular pasta], and good olive oil – simple things,” she says.
asserted
she → make → things
For Busuttil Nishimura, whose career and personal life have been on a warp-speed trajectory for the past decade, simplicity is more than a buzzword – it’s her whole raison d’être.
asserted
it → ’ → buzzword
“Cooking for your friends and family doesn’t need to be fancy or stressful,” she says.
asserted
she → cook → friends
Nor does simple have to mean – dare she say it – basic.
asserted
she → have → it
“The kind of cooking that I do is so understated that you have to have the confidence that you can use just four ingredients, and it’s going to be delicious.
asserted
it → do → ingredients
But if not for a chance meeting at a local farmer’s market with her now-publisher, Mary Small, who had been a fan of Busuttil Nishimura’s mid-2000s food blog, Ostro, she may have remained content in her former career as an Italian teacher.
uncertain
she → remain → teacher
“It is quite uncommon now to have been discovered, and not go through MasterChef,” she says.
asserted
she → discover → MasterChef
After her 2017 debut cookbook, Ostro, came out to rave reviews for its celebration of unhurried, simple cooking (Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson were fans), she still didn’t know if she could make food her full-time job.
uncertain
food → come → cooking
“I was a nobody, really, I had my blog, it was the very early days of Instagram,” she says.
asserted
she → have → Instagram
“I never really set a timeline or had a plan, which for a Virgo, and someone with anxiety, [is rare].
asserted
which → set → anxiety
This month Busuttil Nishimura will release her fifth cookbook (she also wrote an award-winning children’s book, Sundays Under the Lemon Tree), Simple Pleasures.
asserted
she → release → Tree
She hopes fans will see it as a balm for these “crazy” times.
asserted
fans → hop → times
“We’re so inundated with the news and the busyness of life – it is so overwhelming,” she says.
asserted
she → inundate → life
The recipes in the book, which range from hearty soups to chocolate mousse, are about “coming back to what actually is meaningful and brings us pleasure”.
asserted
what → range → pleasure
For Busuttil Nishimura, that means leaning into her softness, both physically and emotionally: “This idea of slowing down, but not in an arduous way,” she says.
asserted
she → mean → way
“The small moments that punctuate our day are what makes cooking – and life – so pleasurable.”
asserted
cooking → punctuate → day
Aside from the sleep deprivation of having a young baby, life is in a good place for Busuttil Nishimura.
asserted
life → have → Nishimura
But, as we tuck into our plates of cured salmon, soft egg, and pickled fennel and cucumber, she tells me the past decade has been punctuated by periods of postpartum anxiety following the births of Haruki, now 11, and Yukito, 6.
asserted
decade → tuck → Haruki
“When you have a baby, you’re very raw and emotional – it makes you reflect a lot on how you grew up.
asserted
you → have → lot
My anxiety’s all around health stuff, because my mum was really unwell when I was little.
asserted
I → ’ → stuff
Born in Adelaide as the youngest of three children, Busuttil Nishimura was two when her mother developed breast cancer at age 40 (her parents separated when she was six).
asserted
she → bear → age
Even as a child, food offered her a place of “peace and calm and escape”.
asserted
food → offer → peace
“There’s something about the beauty of food, nature and the reliability of mostly knowing how it’s going to turn out – there’s something special about that,” she says.
asserted
she → ’ → that
Becoming a mother at 26, before any of her friends and with Nori working long hours as a chef, was an incredibly lonely time.
asserted
Nori → become → chef
“It’s really isolating,” she recalls.
asserted
she → ’ → ?
We’re trying to build something for the both of us, and for our kids.
asserted
We → try → kids
It’s a big juggle.
asserted
It → ’ → ?
Since then, she has worked with a therapist, and says her third pregnancy was her best yet.
asserted
pregnancy → work → therapist
“It took me three goes to really figure out what I needed to ask for … to have a great pregnancy and a great postpartum time.”
asserted
I → take → pregnancy
She remembers thinking at the time: “I’m the most settled in my career that I’ve been, and everything feels like the jigsaw puzzle has fit together.
asserted
puzzle → think → career
But a shock came about a week after Mikoto was born, when Busuttil Nishimura developed jaw and neck pain.
asserted
Nishimura → come → pain
Initially, she dismissed it as a delayed reaction to labour, but then she started dribbling while trying to drink water.
asserted
she → dismiss → water
…and 32 more, not listed.
The Aporia
