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Poetry Shelf review: My Weekend Table by Gretchen Lowe

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My Weekend Table: Celebrating food from Aotearoa and beyond
Gretchen Lowe, Bateman, 2025

oven baked salmon

I like my fat cooking pot
I like my fat wild heart

Paula Green
from Cookhouse, Auckland University Press, 1997

Poetry Shelf is dedicated to celebrating poetry in Aotearoa – across regions, cultures, communities, age, form, subject matter. But every now and then I’m drawn to a local art exhibition or cookbook I have loved. Perhaps I might start adding the occasional album or three!

I often have an album or a poetry collection on replay, and that seems to be the same for cookbooks. Usually I dedicate a week to a particular cookbook, but My Weekend Table by Gretchen Lowe has been the go-to book on my kitchen table for a month. We share a love of similar ingredients and a desire to create simple meals that are absolutely tasty and nourishing. I was going to try a couple of recipes, photograph them, and then sing the book’s praises. But here it is . . . a fourth week and I am still cooking from it.

For me, poetry is all about connections, and cooking is just the same. There is aroha in the process, and there is aroha in the sharing. Over the past year I have been nourished by so many poetry collections published in Aotearoa, and here is a cookbook that strikes the right culinary notes for me. Connections on the plate, connections in your tastebuds, with your family around the table, with memory, with love.

Let me tempt you with a few things I’ve made: Hazelnut romesco sauce / pistachio and any greens pesto / buttery prawn, lemon and rosé pasta / blueberry and vanilla streusel muffins / cod, agria and tarragon croquettes / prawn, lemon and white bean hot pot / chicken and thyme meatballs (which I made into paprika and parmesan bake) / sausage, fennel and tomato pasta / garden greens, leek, ricotta galette with hazelnut crust / cheesy leek and spinach gratin / roast butternut and beetroot salad with orange whipped feta and hazelnuts / pear, raspberry and lemon syrup cake / sour cherry and dark chocolate oat cookies.

The book is gorgeously designed, with terrific photography. The recipes are easy to follow, easily adaptable to suit what is in your pantry, to whether you eat meat, and what is in your daily energy jar. And most importantly for me, starting points for your own tweaks and twists and creativity. I have made the lemon syrup coconut cake with various toppings. I have dolloped the pistachio garden-greens pesto on fish chunks in a Moroccan braise.

“I hope the pages in this book will inspire you to cook with passion, savour each bite and treasure moments spent around your weekend table.” Gretchen Lowe

Just when I needed it . . . this gorgeous book replenished my heart and my energy jar . . and has given my family much joy. Thank you.

Gretchen Lowe is a celebrated food writer, chef, food stylist and photographer whose work has graced New Zealand’s top TV and radio campaigns, cookbooks, food columns, and social media platforms. Renowned for her ability to craft mouthwatering dishes and bring them to life through stunning photography, Gretchen’s creations are as visually captivating as they are delicious. Her food creations span a range of New Zealand’s most iconic brands, including Fonterra, NZME, Pic’s Peanut Butter, Fisher & Paykel, and Annabel Langbein Media, alongside contributions to the NZ Herald and a popular segment with Jesse Mulligan on Radio New Zealand.

Bateman page
Gretchen Lowe website

Poetry Shelf review: Take Me to Spain by Melanie Jenkins and Jo Wilcox

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Take Me to Spain, by Melanie Jenkins and Jo Wilcox
Beatnik Press, 2025

Food is a vital part of my day: harvesting, planning, cooking, nourishing, sharing. Food is also a significant delight when I travel, a way of drawing closer to a place My last trip to Spain was with my family, a week in Barcelona savouring mouthfuls of food, art and architecture. I stored tastes in my mental kitchen, wanting to recreate versions back home.

Cookbooks are a vital part of my cooking – I have a library of cookbooks, across cuisines, ingredients, proteins, from home-style cooks to celebrity chefs, and everything in between. Flicking through a good cookbook, I will be attracted by a sense of freshness, herbs and spices, tradition and innovation, simplicity and complexity, satisfying taste combos, and that all important marriage of comfort and delight.

Sometimes I reproduce a recipe exactly, but I often use it as springboard. I am often reminded of the link between me as cook and me as poet. You make a poem your own, just as you make a recipe your own!

Take Me to Spain by Melanie Jenkins (photographer) and Jo Wilcox (writer and food stylist) is a culinary delight. When Melanie travelled to Spain for an exhibition of her contemporary fine-art photography, her husband was unable to go, so she went with her friend Claudia. Back home, Jo was so infected by their Spanish stories, she set out to recreate a culinary version of their travel experiences . . . researching and cooking and sharing food! Melanie and Jo worked together to produce a book that does indeed take me back to Spain.

Melanie’s photographs catch the dishes so beautifully, my mouth is watering, but she also evokes the Spanish setting with her on-location photographs. I am soaking up the blue sky, the terracotta roofs, the white-washed buildings. Perfect!

A number of my favourite ingredients make an appearance: paprika, saffron, fresh dill, rocket, spinach, honey, olive oil, fish. Yep this book ticks all my boxes so it is time to get cooking! I carefully follow a number of recipes with terrific results – and I also use some as creative launchpads.

Here is a sampling of some of the dishes I have cooked and shared with my family.

‘Crispy skinned fish with smoky chickpeas & lime & herb oil’.
Super tasty, super harmonious, with spinach, dill and parsley from the garden, it’s a family hit.

Two supremo salads. ‘Grilled vegetable salad with crushed olive dressing’.
The kind of recipe you can adapt to fit what is in your fridge or cupboard or garden. So I used zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, red peppers – and fresh garden rocket. Loved the dressing. No sherry vinegar so I tried cider vinegar with a splash of honey. Yum!!
Also made ‘Roasted beetroot & orange salad with a berry dressing’.
It’s winter so I used nz mandarins instead of imported oranges, and thawed some organic raspberries for the dressing.

Another night I used the paella recipe as a launchpad, partly because I can’t use a BBQ at the moment, and also because I only had prawns on hand. I made a paella, with the divine presence of saffron and paprika, scattered over some baby tomatoes and halved black olives, then side-stepped and sautéed the prawns quickly in rose-harissa paste and tossed them on top with a good handful of chopped dill. Excuse the steamy photo!

Finally, ‘Boiled orange & olive oil cake’.
Wow! This is absolutely stunning. I put mandarins on the top as they are more flavoursome at the moment. Easy to make, easy to eat, perfect to share with your family in the midst of a tough week!!! The next day, with a short black it is extra yum.

So YES! This gorgeous book me right back to Spain. The recipes are easy to use and easy to adapt! But my Spanish travels are not yet over. This week I aim to cook: ‘Smoked fish cakes with creamy feta dressing’, ‘Potato and zucchini tart’, ‘Mushrooms stuffed with ricotta and pinenuts’.

I highly recommend this cookbook as a way of vacationing in Spain within the comfort of your own kitchen, whatever the season! I think I have a Spanish poem simmering!

MELANIE JENKINS is an acclaimed photographer known for her ability to capture the essence of culture and cuisine through her lens. 
Her passion for storytelling has taken her around the globe, and her fine art photography has been featured in exhibitions and publications internationally. Take Me to Spain is a deeply personal project, inspired by her travels to Spain and her love for vibrant, authentic experiences.

JO WILCOX is a celebrated food writer and stylist with a career spanning decades in the culinary world. From crafting recipes for top publications to cooking for royalty, Jo’s expertise lies in creating dishes that are both approachable and full of flavour. Her passion for fresh ingredients and the art of sharing meals shines through in this collaboration with Melanie, blending photography and recipes into a feast for the senses.

Beatnik page