Julie Le Clerc is a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

food writer, chef, caterer, restaurateur and a presenter on TV food shows.

Biography

Le Clerc grew up in the Auckland suburb of Westmere. Her mother Loraine made and iced wedding cakes as a cottage industry, and Le Clerc showed an early interest in food. After some years travelling overseas and exploring new cuisines, Le Clerc returned to Auckland and took lessons at the Cordon Bleu school in Parnell. She was soon asked to teach at the institute, and she also opened a catering company. Le Clerc opened her first cafe with her sister Helen, called Byzantium, and located on Auckland's

Ponsonby Road Ponsonby is an inner-city suburb of Auckland located 2 km west of the Auckland CBD. The suburb is oriented along a ridge running north–south, which is followed by the main street of the suburb, Ponsonby Road. A predominantly upper-middle ...

. Her second cafe was the Garnet Road Food Store, in Westmere, just along the road from where she grew up. She then left the cafe business to work on developing recipes and writing cookbooks. She has written for Cuisine, Viva, Next magazine, and the NZ Woman's Weekly, and has had her own magazine. She is now the food editor at NZ House & Garden magazine. Le Clerc has published 15 cookbooks. She has also presented

TV3 Channel 3 or TV 3 may refer to: Television *Canal 3 (Burkina Faso), a commercial television channel in Burkina Faso *Canal 3 (Guatemala), a commercial television channel in Guatemala *Channel 3 (Algeria), a public Algerian TV channel owned by EPTV ...

's cooking show ''Cafe Secrets'' for two seasons. Le Clerc occasionally holds cooking classes and demonstrations throughout New Zealand. In 2016, Le Clerc spent six months in India as a consulting chef to The Lodhi Hotel,

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

. returning a year later for another 6 months.

Awards and recognition

In 2005, Le Clerc's book ''Made in Morocco: A Journey of Exotic Tastes and Places'' won the Readers' Choice Award at the

Montana New Zealand Book Awards The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are literary awards presented annually in New Zealand. The awards began in 1996 as the merger of two literary awards events: the New Zealand Book Awards, which ran from 1976 to 1995, and the Goodman Fielder W ...

. In 2007, her book ''Taking Tea in the Medina'' won both Book of the Year at the New Zealand Guild of Food Writers Culinary Quill Awards, and Best Soft Cover Recipe Book at the World Food Media Awards. In 2014, ''Hot Pink Spice Saga'', which Le Clerc co-wrote with Peta Mathias, was shortlisted in the Best in the World for Indian Cookery category at the

Gourmand World Cookbook Awards A gourmand is a person who takes great pleasure and interest in consuming good food and drink. ''Gourmand'' originally referred to a person who was "a glutton for food and drink", a person who eats and drinks excessively; this usage is now rare. ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Clerc, Julie Living people Writers from Auckland New Zealand chefs Cookbook writers Women cookbook writers 20th-century New Zealand people 21st-century New Zealand people New Zealand businesspeople New Zealand restaurateurs Women restaurateurs Year of birth missing (living people)