Debbie Harwood

FAMOUS FOR HER FOOD OBSESSIONS
She’s just released a solo album and Debbie Harwood is as passionate as ever about what she does – and what she eats too, discovers Linda Donald


“To me food was love”, Kiwi singing star Debbie Harwood responds, in a rich throaty timbre, in answer to my question about her first food memory. “Mum was not a demonstrative person, but she showered us with love by feeding us incredible food. We virtually had a roast meal every night. There were no quick dishes like beans on toast or chops.”

We are sharing a table at Devonport’s grand old refurbished Esplanade Hotel, where the charm of wicker in the intimate dining room, is reminiscent of Singapore’s gracious ‘Raffles’. I’m enjoying an excellent long black, while Debbie, just back from a Gym session, accompanies a pot of English tea with a wedge of creamy blue cheese, some grapes, water crackers and fine slices of fig pate. It looks good.

As Debbie has a nibble, she admits with a naughty chuckle, “I am famous for my food obsessions. My eyes roll in my head when I think of lovely food. My life is basically consumed by what I am going to eat next. I finish breakfast and spend the rest of the morning thinking what am I going to have for lunch. I decide what I am going to cook and purchase the ingredients beforehand. Because my life style is so erratic, I don’t do big shops.”

Being a food lover however, is not compatible with singing, as Debbie explains, “The hardest thing for me with singing, is that I can’t eat before I sing. I have to eat really early, not at all, or really late. I feel completely deprived.”

Debbie Harwood is a vivacious woman. You hear it in her singing and she brings it to our interview today, in the telling of wonderful stories, lashed with laughter, as we talk about of her life as a singer and consummate food lover.

She has been a musician, music industry mentor, broadcaster and actress (Jesus Christ Superstar and Shortland St) and in true Debbie fashion she has recently self produced a new solo release ‘Soothe Me’, in just two weeks. Prior to that, as a member of the award winning ‘When the Cat’s Away’ she sang with Annie Crummer, Kim Willoughby and Margaret Urlich, to take the Listener Film and Television Awards for Entertainers of the Year and Group of the Year in the late ‘80s. The group re-formed to tour NZ with Sharon O”Neill in 2001 to promote their new album, ‘Live in Paradise’ - named the Melting Pot Tour, it was the biggest in NZ music history, playing to over 80,000 people.

Given this success, it’s hard to believe she confesses to being consumed by shyness as a young child. “At school, I was too scared to be in the school choir. I never pushed myself forward. Although I always wanted to sing independently, I was hopeless at auditions and always felt sure I wouldn’t be able to do it. However, in my later teens, I began doing shows with an operatic society and found I could. Then I joined a band when I was about eighteen and started singing regularly on Friday and Saturday nights.”

Looking back to those early years, Debbie also confides, that although she was brought up in Hawkes Bay, where the family lived on Church Road, famous for its wineries, she grew up in a household were wine was not allowed. “It was a shame to go that far and today, I find in a balanced way, wine is a beautiful part of living. My favourite is Cabernet Merlot. I love that blend, especially Hawkes Bay Alpha Domus, The Navigator because of its richness, flavour and depth.”

There are other recollections too, which have us both chortling. “I made a pumpkin pie in 1981 – l remember the year, because I will never forget what happened. We didn’t have a fridge in the house, so I put it on the shelf. I cut myself a slice, a really big one too. As I was putting it on the plate, I noticed that the bottom was slightly burnt. I thought that’s unusual, I don’t usually burn things. I’m quite an intuitive cook. Anyway I took a huge bite of it and this taste just hit me. It was the most awful bitter taste”. Her face twisted in horror at the memory and I waited for the punch line. “It was black with ants. Imagine eating a huge mouthful of ants. They are not nice. It tasted like acid and I was so looking forward to what turned out to be a dreadful experience.”

When it comes to favourite foods, Debbie says, probably because she grew up in a cold climate, her preference is for autumn and winter foods, with a couple of exceptions. “The only bad recollections I have of food prepared by my mother, are brains and hearts. I recall a whole baking tray of hearts, all sitting up in rows. The look as well as the smell put me off. They’re hard and coarse and I couldn’t eat them. Brains are slippery and I couldn’t eat them either. For me the texture is important.”

Talking about texture, reminds Debbie about an Italian Chef in Napier at the Lantana Restaurant. “In the days when it was unheard of to hand make lasagne, he rolled his own pasta. There would be twenty fine layers and when you bit through it you went through these twenty layers. I used to dream about it at night.”

And her first cooking memory? “As a school kid, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. Her husband had died quite young and she managed her finances by looking after boarders. She was always cooking. My first cooking experience was preserving local peaches with her.”

“She was completely self-sufficient. We even used to get a turkey live for Christmas from the market. We put it in the back seat of her Humber 80, with a paper bag on its head and its bottom fluffing around. Back home, she would then chop its head off and dress it herself in the big basin in the laundry. You really appreciate food when you have gone through a process like that.” (or it could put you off for life!)

Work also, took a foodie turn. “My first job was waitressing in an old fashioned hotel in Napier called the Masonic, famous for its roast beef. We did 300 covers on a Saturday night. We used to roast entire sirloin and fillets of beef like this, (hand stretched out to over half a metre) in these huge ovens. We served diners a huge slice of rare beef with gravy and tangy horseradish sauce. There were also scrumptious steamed puddings, including golden Madeira ones served with delicious orange custard. I learnt a lot from there and carried on to become M’aitre D at Delmonicos in the ‘80s, which was one of the most fabulous restaurants in Auckland at the time. It had jazz and world-renowned chef, Mark Gregory (chef chosen as NZ Cultural Ambassador to Tokyo, worked at The Ritz, Dorchester Hotel, received M.O.G.B British award). He introduced Nouvelle Cuisine, so I learnt a lot by watching the way he cooked. I was just riveted.”

As you would expect, experience in the industry has left its mark, so when Debbie is celebrating it has to be special. “Having been a waitress, I get very annoyed with bad service. It’s like singing - you know what is going on back stage. That’s why Antoines in Auckland was the best experience of my life. It’s expensive, but a whole other level of food and the waiters and service were so special. It is very hard to enjoy going out, if you are served badly. It just drives me crazy.”

It’s equally important to entertain with style at home. “I love the ritual of cooking. That means putting on an apron, setting a beautiful table, with white or coloured china, candles, flowers on the table and different sorts of very old silver I’ve gathered up over the years. I adore old tablecloths and love animal prints. My favourite is a white damask cloth with blue swans all over it. I also have a thing about the vessels the wine is served in. I can’t drink out of what I call ‘lowtel’ standard glasses. I like beautiful glasses.”

“I absolutely love cooking for people, but generally I don’t use cookbooks, just make it up. I get the same pleasure out of feeding people as I do out of singing for them. I like to see them happy. Love it when I cook them something simple and they say that’s delicious. I have these large white Italian bowls and fill them high with really tasty food, like my Autumn Pot Roast (recipe below).”

That’s why today, Debbie’s ideal gig is on a winery. “People eating good food, drinking fine wine and listening, so there’s a combination of elements that create our lifestyle. Music, food and wine brought together are just magnificent.


DEBBIES AUTUMN POT ROAST

6 single free-range chicken breasts skin off
1 to 2 handfuls of fresh herbs - thyme, sage, marjoram
4 fat cloves of garlic peeled
4 tablespoons good quality olive oil
half teaspoon ground tumeric
10 baby onions, 10 to 15 baby carrots, 10 fresh baby beetroot washed with skins & tops on
10 fresh green beans
half cup of fresh or frozen peas

2 & a half cups of chicken stock
1 tablespoon raw sugar
grated rind one medium lemon
salt & pepper to taste

2 heads of garlic roasted
To roast the garlic, preheat the oven to 150°C. Cut thin slice off top of garlic head to expose the tops of cloves. Put in in shallow baking dish and pour tablespoon of olive oil slowly over top. Season with salt and pepper. Cover pan with aluminium foil and bake for about an hour, until garlic is soft and tender. Drain and when cool, squeeze garlic pulp out.

6 medium sized potatoes, peeled, cut in quarters and boiled.
1 rounded tablespoon butter
splash of milk
s & p to taste

Chop the herbs and garlic finely and rub over the chicken breasts, especially inside where the tenderloin meets the breast. Heat a fry pan, add olive oil and cook until brown on the outside. Put into a pot roast pan with a lid.

Add more oil to the fry pan with turmeric. Then put in baby onions, carrots and beetroot. Fry for a few minutes, then add chicken. Seal both sides of chicken, then pour some chicken stock into the fry pan and with a wooden spoon scrape the spices and herbs etc off the bottom, then pour this over the chicken and vegetables. Add rest of stock to the pot roast together with raw sugar, lemon rind and salt and pepper to taste.

Put in heated oven with lid on. Cook at 170°C for about an hour and a quarter, then add fresh beans and peas and cook for another 10 minutes, the last few minutes with the lid off. Roast some garlic while pot roast is cooking and boil potatoes. Mash potatoes with contents from squeezed bulbs of roast garlic. I find that it's best to mash the potatoes dry first and then add butter and milk, salt and pepper.

Line bowls with a huge dollop of potato and then place a chicken breast on top and spoon vegetables and stock over the lot.

©2005 Linda Donald
All rights reserved
Appeared in Lifestyle
Words 1943