• Eurovision party food recipes
• An Ottolenghi guide to eating in Israel

The Australian co-host of this year's Eurovision Song Contest might be best known for her work on Spicks and Specks, Triple J mornings and ABC afternoons but, fun fact, she also has a real passion for Italian food and cooking. Just don't ask her about picking grapes as a teenager growing up in Central Victoria.

"Oh, man. Up there it's 45 degrees in summer. It's just stinking hot and sticky and you don't make much money. After school we had to pick rockmelons, raisins and sultanas as well, shaking racks and drying sultanas. I remember that very, very well. I whinged about that quite a bit as a surly teenager."

Growing up the youngest of four, Warhurst says she got away with quite a lot compared to her older brothers. Her parents, both teachers, not only worked full time but also maintained their block of land in their downtime. "How on earth they did it, with four kids and full-time jobs themselves, I can't imagine it now. I can't even look after myself, let alone the amount of work that they had to do."

Her mother did the most of the cooking for the family. And because it was the 1980s, the Women's Weekly Chinese Cookbook got a very good run. "Everyone was starting to try to cook different cuisines from different cultures and that was a big one. But it was [generally] pretty stock standard. Mum does a really mean roast, too. There's nothing like your mum's roast."

Flash forward a couple of decades, and Warhurst is currently preparing to fly to Tel Aviv next month for Eurovision, the televised song contest with a global cult following that has been running since the late '50s (Celine Dion performed for Switzerland and won in 1988, and Abba took home the gong for Sweden in 1974). Some would argue that if you haven't thrown a Eurovision Song Contest party and dressed as a Finnish hair metal band in full drag you haven't really lived.

I'm a big advocate for pasta for breakfast. It's great - you get all your carbs for the day, get ready to take on the world

When Warhurst moved to Melbourne in the '90s, she was obsessed with the show, which she has co-hosted, along with Take Me Out's Joel Creasey, for the past two years. "I just loved it: the drama and the over-the-topness, the frocks and the wind machines and the songs that just had key changes coming out their eyeballs."

Hitting the ground in Israel, she's particularly amped for the chickpea dip. "Everyone tells me the hummus is just next-level. Like you've never had it like this before. There's just plates and plates of little tasty things that go around at every meal and I'm just so excited to delve into that. I'm just really excited to eat, basically."

Not that there's going to be a huge amount of time for eating out – TV work is a demanding mistress. "It's pretty go, go, go. It looks really glamorous and fun, but it's mostly five days in a big shed. But when we do [get to go out and eat], we'll do it well."

As gruelling as the days can be in television, they're nothing compared to doing breakfast radio if you're not a morning person. "I was terrible," Warhurst says of her stint as Triple J's breakfast co-host host with Jason Whalley and Lindsay McDougall (AKA Jay and the Doctor). "It's not my time of the day. It feels unnatural to me to be up at 4am. I don't know how people do it and I bow down to anyone who survives at breakfast radio. I remember one morning when I woke up and I was so tired and I got in the shower and I realised I was fully clothed and I just started crying."

Now that breakfast radio is a thing of the past, she can concentrate on the important things, like Roman-style lamb and the joys of morning spaghetti (Melbourne pasta palace Tipo 00 is a favourite). "I feel like I should have been born in Italy. If I could eat pasta for every meal, I would. I'm a big advocate for pasta for breakfast. It's great – you get all your carbs for the day, ready to take on the world."

As with many high-octane people of profile, cooking is a meditation for Warhurst. "It's when I'm truly free, in a way. My mind is on that and that only. It's pace for me. It's where you get to drift off. I know for a lot of people cooking is a pain in the arse because it's just a thing they do at the end of the day. I haven't got kids and I don't have to bring out the food every night. For me, it's a real luxury to be able to cook, and just enjoy that time, and disappear into it."

Quickfire Corner

First album you ever listened to and loved? The earliest memory of mine is putting Abba Arrival on the record player. That would have been the first pop record I remember. I was obsessed with it. I think the helicopter on the front [and them] in their white jumpsuits was super hot. The gentlemen on the front have signalled the type of men I've been attracted to for the rest of my life.

Any dietaries? I was a vegetarian for a couple of years but I've fallen off that wagon, so no.

Last song you listened to? We had Willie Nelson's son Lukas Nelson on the show today, and he wrote and produced most of the soundtrack for A Star Is Born. I listened to Shallow at work. That was the last song.

Last book you read? Bri Lee's Eggshell Skull. Really powerful stuff from a young Queensland writer. It's amazing.

The radio interview you've been most proud of? I think when I spoke to Jimmy Webb who wrote all those beautiful songs for Glen Campbell. I'm a bit of a country girl at heart.

The last time you messed up? Probably on radio today.

The last time you cried? Last week after watching Judith Lucy's comedy show. I got a bit emotional – it touched a few nerves.

What's in your fridge? I'm trying to eat whole foods at the moment, because apparently that's good for you, so I've got like a roasted vegetable dish with quinoa. I'm not normally so healthful but I'm trying. There'll be wine. Lots of condiments. A shit-load of hot sauces, and parmesan cheese. A fridge without parmesan is not useful to me.

Eurovision Song Contest 2019 airs May 15-18 on SBS.