Interestingly, both come from multicultural backgrounds and their books and recipes reflect this.
Nadia Lim, winner and author of Nadia's Kitchen (Random House), has a Kiwi mother and Malaysian Chinese father, and Jax Hamilton, author of Jax Cooks (David Bateman), is of Jamaican descent, but grew up in the UK.
Both, not surprisingly, believe in "real" food rather than processed food and share their enthusiasm in their books.
Nadia's recipes include many Southeast Asian and Chinese along with more general Kiwi dishes. As a graduate in nutrition and dietetics at the University of Otago, her recipes are also healthy and come with basic nutrition information. Recipes include duck and yam salad with plum dressing, a Japanese-style smoked salmon Waldorf, and drunken raisin mousse puddings.
Jax Hamilton's recipes are representative of her life, from her mother's Jamaican recipes such as Jubbly yard fish dinner and Jamaican lemon and ginger loaf, dishes from her holidays abroad like pad thai, pasta puttanesca or Greek sticky lemon cake, and from her time with small children and living in New Zealand, such as tomato relish or chicken and kumara curry. Her outgoing style comes through in her lively writing.
• Jax Hamilton will be talking at Marbecks in Wall St, Dunedin, on March 29 in support of the Otago Community Hospice.
