Silvia Colloca’s Made in Italy

TV chef Silvia Colloca on the difference between cooking Italian food and cooking like an Italian.

The food blog you started while on maternity leave with your second son led to two cookbooks and an SBS-TV series, Made in Italy. Do you still consider cooking a hobby?

I have to admit it has now officially taken over. I've received an avalanche of positivity from entering this world and I'm not going to back out now. I'm just loving that there's room for me in this industry because at first I wasn't really sure. I'm not a trained chef; my brother is and some of my best friends are, so I know the work that goes into that career.

What does it mean to cook like an Italian?

You can cook Italian food or you can cook like an Italian and these are different things. We don't necessarily have a recipe or a precise method; we have learnt by watching our mamas and nonnas and aunties make do with very little. It's a matter of understanding produce and seasonality and simplicity; these three things combined with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil never tend to go wrong.

So frugality is important?

We don't let anything go to waste. My nonna was particularly parsimonious; she had a very poor upbringing in a small mountainous village in Abruzzo [a region in central Italy]. If bread fell on the floor she would pick it up and kiss it and do the sign of the cross to bless it.

What is your new ABC TV show?

Silvia's Italian Kitchen will be me hosting a dinner party for some of Australia's favourite people. We make wonderful food, eat it and talk about life in all its glory and the disasters that come with it. No one was given a script, people had wine so ...  God knows!

You met your husband, Richard Roxburgh, on the set of Hollywood vampire movie Van Helsing. That was kind of a turkey, wasn't it?

It has Dracula, his brides, werewolves and Frankenstein in the one movie, what are you going to expect? It was probably not [director] Stephen Sommers' finest hour but it changed my life completely because I met Richard and my life took a turn and that was it - I became a grown-up.

Do you ever feel like you're living with your husband's Rake alter-ego, Cleaver Greene?

It's so funny, he is not like the character at all. He's the sweetest, loveliest family man; the most romantic, attentive husband. He is very vague and that drives me crazy - I need to give you some negatives otherwise people are going to hate him. Every so often, he will say something very Cleaver-ish and I say, "Is this the character rubbing off on you?" and he can see that yeah, maybe.

You two have just bought a new house on Sydney's northern beaches. Is the kitchen up to speed?

It's an old 1970s house so I'm back in time in that regard, which I don't mind at all. I grew up in a kitchen very much like this one, so I find myself very much at ease. I'd say we will renovate and make it look like a chef's kitchen, but there's no hurry.

Does the family ever order in pizza?

No! In fact, I've only just finished kneading pizza dough because it's family pizza night tonight. It's just so much easier to make it at home.

You're also a trained opera singer. Do you still sing?

Yes, that's always been my main career, along with acting. I'm about to go to Brisbane because I'm working with Opera Queensland on a new production of Snow White, playing the Wicked Queen. In this version we have no dwarves and no Prince Charming either; it's all about girl power and how wrong that can go!

Silvia's Italian Kitchen will screen on ABC later this year. Snow White is at the Roundhouse Theatre, Brisbane, September 3-24.