A-list Confidential: Celebrity chef’s big announcement
Celebrity pastry chef Adriano Zumbo and his wife Nelly have made a “very special” announcement just a year after their wedding.
Confidential
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Celebrity pastry chef Adriano Zumbo and his wife Nelly have made a “very special” Mother’s Day announcement a year after their wedding.
On Sunday, May 14, Adriano Zumbo took to social media to announce he was expecting a baby with his wife Nelly Zumbo (Riggio).
“We are baking something very special,” Nelly Zumbo wrote on Instagram.
“Most definitely our greatest creation yet. Little baby macaron due November.”
Ms Zumbo also posted on her story about an hour after the announcement: “Overwhelmed by your love. Taking macaron to Mother’s Day lunch.”
Several other big names in the culinary world, including Kirsten Tibballs and Katherine Sabbath, congratulated the happy couple on the announcement.
“Congratulations, so happy for you both,” Tibballs wrote.
The pair met in 2016 and got married in May 2022 at clifftop venue Tiffany’s Maleny.
The couple met when Nelly first applied for a job at Adriano’s dessert business after she starred in a season of My Kitchen Rules.
After Zumbo’s dessert business collapsed in 2018, the couple moved to the Sunshine Coast and have lived there happily for more than four years since.
Afterwards, Zumbo started working on his Noosa Business, Zumbo Test.
LAYNE BEACHLEY: RIDING WAVES OF EMPOWERMENT
Seven-time world champion surfer Layne Beachleyis carving a new path in her journey – not on the waves, but in the realms of mental health advocacy, business, and environmental conservation.
In a recent interview with the Sunday Mail, Beachley spoke candidly about her journey through mental health struggles and the importance of nurturing oneself.
“I feel like I’ve found a pretty good equilibrium in my life,” she said, attributing this balance to making better choices, honouring her emotions, and maintaining a gratitude practice.
The 50-year-old has been vocal about her mental health struggles for years, admitting that here was a time when she used to wake up and think of ways to end her life.
This turbulent time coincided with the dawn of her surfing career, just two short years before she won her first world title.
In 2019, she admitted, “it was my husband, INXS guitarist Kirk Pengilly, who came to the rescue” during a particularly depressive episode.
But out of her darkest hours came strength and resilience, and her experiences became the catalyst for the creation of the Awaken Academy, an online empowerment program founded in 2020.
The program is designed to help people feel more centred, connected, and confident.
As a motivational speaker, Beachley was keen to ensure the messages she delivered about sustainable success were practised in her own life.
“It’s a massive passion project that lights me up and gives me the motivation to get up every day, because I like to shortcut the struggle and empower people to feel more centred, connected and confident,” she said.
Beachley’s ultimate goal is to empower one million lives through Awaken Academy.
Beyond the realm of mental health and empowerment, Beachley’s longstanding relationship with the ocean has led her to partner with
the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
She’s now an ambassador for the organisation, leveraging her influence to raise awareness about various campaigns, including the Koala Bear campaign and crucial ocean conservation efforts.
Specifically, she is urging Queenslanders to support the “Net Free Barrier Reef” campaign, which aims to end commercial gill net fishing on the Great Barrier Reef.
“The reef not only serves as a significant source of tourism and recreational activities but also plays a crucial role in our global ecosystem,” Beachley highlighted, pointing out the serious threats posed by commercial fishing practices.
To support the “Net Free Barrier Reef” campaign, visit wwf.org.au and sign the petition.
BRISSY COMIC JUGGLING STAND-UP, REALITY TV, AND CAT PARENTING
From crafting punchlines on stages worldwide to blowing up on Network Seven’s new reality TV show, Brisbane-born Becky Lucas is a comedic force to be reckoned with.
Yet, despite her successes, Lucas remains incredibly humble, even when she’s got the world at her comedic fingertips.
On the surface, it seems that Lucas has “not much” going on, at least according to her modest self-assessment.
Yet, she is currently juggling multiple projects that include international tours, co-hosting a reality TV show, working on a stand-up special, and possibly launching a film project.
The comedian, who now resides in Sydney, has a new role as the host of Blow Up, a competition reality show where balloon artists and decorators battle to create the most impressive inflatable artworks.
It’s a concept that initially bemused Lucas.
“My first reaction was absolutely not,” she said.
But after watching the original Dutch show, Lucas was smitten, describing her involvement as “really cool”.
Lucas admits that she was initially sceptical about the show, thinking it was “all a bit silly”. But her perception shifted as she got to know the contestants.
“I came out really believing in these people; seeing people passionate about something makes you care about it,” Lucas reveals, adding a sense of warmth and genuine interest that has made her so beloved among fans.
Despite her busy schedule, Lucas maintains a close connection with her Brisbane roots.
She will bring her stand-up show back to her hometown in July, a performance that will also be filmed as a special.
Moreover, she frequently hints to her boyfriend about Brisbane’s liveability, hoping to sway him towards a move north.
“I actually really want to move back to Brisbane just quietly,” she said. “I’m always sort of reading out positive things about Brisbane to my boyfriend, like ‘would you look at that, it’s the most liveable city in Australia, beautiful’, trying to give him hints.”
Lucas’s affable humility extends to her life off the screen and stage, where she’s a proud and devoted cat mum to two felines, who she says keep her forever entertained.
“One of them, Jenny, she likes to play normally like a cat, she chases stuff. And then the other one, I think he’s not right. I caught him looking at a hair tie for half an hour the other day, he thinks that’s a game. “But yes, I’m a cat mum, which is a bit sad, but it’s fun, they’re very entertaining.”
MAGGIE’S BACK IN THE SHED WITH A WHOLE NEW BAKING DOZEN
Maggie Beer returns for a guest appearance on the Great Australian Bake Off as 12 new bakers don their aprons for the new season launching next month on Foxtel.
Beer – who helmed alongside Matt Moran for five seasons of the wholesome reality cooking show – said while it was strange to step back on the set, it was lovely to work with the new judges Darren Purchese and Rachel Khoo and hosts Cal Wilson and Natalie Tran.
“The shed is so special to me, and it was a delight to be there and get a little glimpse of the new team, who made me feel so welcome,” Beer said, adding while it was a sweet taste of her former role, she wasn’t missing TV land with her efforts firmly focused on the Maggie Beer Foundation and its work in transforming food in the aged care sector.
“My life is so overtaken by the foundation. I say that in a positive way, but I’ve really got too much to make work in the rest of the time I have in life.”
The new batch of home bakers rising to the challenge of GABO’s seventh season are Queenslanders Gavin Turner, Laurent La and Sandra Walter plus Adam Miller (Vic), Felicity Dobson (WA), Gayla Dissanayake (NSW), Guillermo Urra (Vic), Ilona Nicola (Vic), Laura Foo (Vic), Natalie Levy (NSW), Neil Higgins (WA) and Reem El Daouk (Vic).
Beer was full of praise for the 12. “As ever it’s the bakers who make the show and Rachel and Darren filled me in before heading on to set,” she says. “It was wonderful to see what the bakers were made of, and yet again this season’s contestants are truly talented. And their enthusiasm – it’s a really lovely thing to come across.”
As a huge fan of Bake Off, Purchese, who originally hails from England, said he was still pinching himself that he gets to be part of it.
“Rachel and I are so impressed with the inventiveness, enthusiasm and talent of the bakers. Being my first time in the shed, I knew the bakers were going to be good, but I didn’t realise just how good,” he said.
The line-up might have changed, but the original recipe hasn’t for the Australian version of the global juggernaut. Over 10 weeks, the bakers will work their way through a trio of weekly tasks – signature challenge, technical bake and the all-important showstopper. At the end of each week, one will be crowned Star Baker, and one will leave. The last baker standing after the 30 challenges will be crowned Australia’s Best Amateur Baker.
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