Over the next few weeks we have a great line up of Friday Foodie In Focus interviews for you. To kick off this new round with a bang, I'm incredibly excited to introduce you to the lovely Kate Gibbs. Kate is a Sydney-based food writer, author, blogger, cook and stylist. As a regular contributor to the Sunday Style magazines food column, Fine Foodie, you may have already come across her name & way with words. Kate has also written for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Wall Street Journal, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Cosmo and Frankie magazine to name a few. More recently, Kate has launched a new cookbook with her grandmother, the adored Margaret Fulton. Hear all about this new book Margaret & Me, what we can expect to find in Kate's fridge, her ideal last supper plus more below.

What's your food philosophy?

Everything that you eat, from the moment as a baby you’re given solids to the school lunch you were packed, the take-away fish and chips as a teenager to the meals you churn out night after night as an adult, these dishes all come together to make up your food memory. I believe that you are what you eat. So make every meal you eat count. Even if it’s an inexpensive bread roll stuffed with roast pork and Vietnamese herbs or a meal you cook for the family, you may as well make it delicious. If you learn to cook, you have more control over your children’s and your own food memories, your health and your life. That’s why food is so powerful.

What's your first memory in the kitchen?

SO many memories. I remember not being able to see what was happening on the top of the bench. My mother Suzanne, who’s a food writer and Cordon Bleu trained cook, would grab a stool for me to stand on, and I’d try and nudge her over, do it myself, even if that was just lining up the beans straight so she could cut the tops off. I still love nothing more than watching her cook, she’s experimental and fun. I remember as well the smell of the roast pork in grandma Margaret’s kitchen, the smell of bread rolls cooking in my other grandma Marion’s house in New Zealand. In New Zealand we’d pick cockles from the beach and cook them in a big pot, each them straight. There’s a photo of me in nappies, sucking cockles from their shells on the beach.

What's your proudest moment or achievement to date?

My latest book, Margaret and Me, was a hugely personal and technically challenging project for me to undertake. It’s basically oversharing, and muck-racking my grandmother’s life too, but what a privilege it is to be able to tell these stories. I just hope people find them entertaining, and the recipes useful and inspiring. I love nothing more than writing and telling stories about food. I get to do this in my weekly food column in Sunday Style magazine, and my features elsewhere. I won a National Press Club award for my writing, and now I’m just aiming for a little Pulitzer… I’m half joking.

When it comes to writing, photography and cooking, do you have a favourite 'child' or do you love each aspect equally?

I love all my children equally, but some more than others depending on the day. Each is very important, but first and foremost I am a writer. The great thing is being able to use all three in my career, and there’s so much more to learn as well. I’m still learning.

Any new & exciting projects on the horizon?

There are times when you sow and times to reap, and right now I’m definitely sowing. Hopefully this current crop is a good one, we’ll see.

If I looked inside your fridge, what would I find?

Not a lot, surprisingly. I tend to buy the ingredients I’ll need to cook the next meal or two, and I avoid artificial packets of things, so quite often it’s bare. There’s a bottle of sriracha and a tube of Kewpie mayo, good-quality mustard and some pickles, some wagyu biltong from Victor Churchill in Sydney, which I slice fresh to snack on while I’m writing. It’s my indulgence. Right now I’m also curing a few duck breasts, they’re wretched looking things right now, hanging from string over a plastic container for six weeks. My husband thinks it’s gross, until I present thinly sliced duck bresaola drizzled with some local honey to have with a glass of red.

What would you last supper be?

My mother’s homemade lobster rolls filled with watercress, a little mayo and slices of lobster - she makes little brioche buns fresh. Not to go at all, I’d have a Schezuan noodle salad, with curls of nutty funghi, cucumber or even thinly sliced pigs ears. It sounds odd but it’s fragrant and fresh and magically textured. Can I have cheese for dessert? I’d have our Australian La Luna, a most perfect cheese, served overripe.

To discover more & connect with Kate click below:

Website: www.kategibbs.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kate-Gibbs Twitter: https://twitter.com/kategibbs Instagram: https://instagram.com/kategibbs Read more interviews with our favourite foodies HERE