Juggling new food ideas

LIFE is a bit of a juggle for Luke Nguyen at the moment.

luke nguyen

LIFE is a bit of a juggle for Luke Nguyen at the moment.

He has just returned from a three-month stint away, following the Mekong River down from Myanmar all the way to the Vietnam delta. He has just released Indochine, his latest book, a homage to French-influenced Vietnamese cooking, and is about to start editing his latest travelogue show for SBS. Plus he has just recorded a segment on Junior MasterChef.

Oh, and he will be appearing before hundreds of fans at this year's MasterChef Live event which starts on Friday.

"It was intense, we were travelling a lot so it was not fun," he recalls at Red Lantern restaurant in Surry Hills.

"From Australia to Vietnam, Vietnam to China, China to Myanmar, Myanmar to Thailand."

"I wanted to go during monsoon season because I love the rain over there. It's actually quite beautiful."

Sharing his experiences are what he does best, he says, and he is looking forward to his appearances over this year's three-day event.

"I love doing these things and foodies come to these events and they go, 'Oh wow'. We teach them about herbs and spices and what things go together and they are blown away," he says.

Luke's recent travels allow him to expand an already wide knowledge on the vast complexity and variety that is Asian cuisine and culture.

"The little kids (on Junior MasterChef) are going, 'What shall we cook, Luke?'. And I say 'It's not just Vietnamese now, I have just come back from Myanmar and I think this will work really well', and 'I love this Chinese dish but not Han Chinese. I am talking about the Yunan province where you have Chinese from Tibet, you have Nakhi people, minority groups, so there are all these different ideas ... "

Luke is just one of dozens of chefs who are hosting cooking classes, demonstrations, plus MasterChef favourites, the mystery box challenges and invention tests.

"I also do it because I want to learn as well," Luke says. "These events are great because when else can you be in a room full of amazing chefs teaching you something."

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MasterChef Live, October 7-9, Royal Hall of Industries and Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park. Ticketek.com.au.

For details go to mastercheflive.com.au.

Luke Nguyen appears on Junior MasterChef on Monday, October 24.