Sophie Knox

Q. Friends unexpectedly drop by and you ask them to stay for dinner. What do you cook?
A. I would throw together a quick pasta. In a pan, fry an onion, garlic, anchovies and some chilli in white wine and good olive oil. Add chopped chicken thigh and vegies, salt and pepper, and cook for five minutes. Stir through the cooked pasta, and sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan. It's a sure-fire crowd pleaser.

Q. What's your favourite recipe from Recipe Finder?
A. Of course, it would be a recipe from Australian Table. I'm biased but our recipes are so easy and so delicious — at the moment I'm loving the nashi buttermilk pancakes. I can never say no when pancakes are on the menu.

Q. What dishes are in your repertoire?
A. My repertoire is a moveable feast — I'm constantly trying out the new Australian Table recipes. My current high-rotation recipes include the last-minute chicken pasta and tuna and vegie pasta salad with lemon dressing. Baking is a favourite pastime, so if ever there's a need for a celebratory cake, I put my hand up!

Q. What's your favourite Friday night meal?
A. Usually out — as much as I love cooking, there's nothing better than having a meal made for you after a big week at work. My partner and I love our local Indonesian restaurant, Java, and we have a fabulous local café called Malena that serves silky gnocchi with slow-cooked beef. Great for the winter months.

Q. For a romantic night in or out, what's on the menu?
A. For our most recent romantic night in, I made an old-fashioned fish pie with mashed potato over the top. It was creamy and cheesy — just how I like it. Oh, and a bottle of good pinot noir always helps.

Q. What's your secret indulgence food?
A. Chocolate licorice bullets, marshmallows, meringues. Can I have more than one?

Q. What food couldn't you live without?
A. I adore my morning muesli — what makes it even better is an orange squeezed over the top with a tablespoon of LSA, organic natural yogurt, passionfruit, strawberries, soy milk and my current favourite health food — goji berries.

Q. What's your favourite health food?
A. Goji berries — packed full of antioxidants.

Q. What's your favourite aisle in the supermarket?
A. The cereal aisle where I stock up on my muesli.

Q. If you could have five foods on a desert island, what would they be?
A. Chocolate bullets, meringue, bread, broccoli and oranges.

Q. What dish do you wish you could cook really well?
A. The kind of dish that depends on instinct to be a success. I envy those cooks that throw together a dish with little direction and it turns out to be a taste sensation every time.

Q. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
A. Muesli — it gets me through the day.

Q. What's your favourite restaurant?
A. Quay at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney. Every mouthful is sublime.

Q. Have you ever eaten with anyone famous?
A. No, but watching Anna Kournikova dine with Enrique Iglesias at Est at the Establishment in Sydney a few years ago was very interesting.

Q. What sort of food do you eat when you're stressed with a deadline?
A. Lindt's Extra Fine Dark Chocolate with 70 percent cocoa. Just enough sweetness with a hint of bitterness.

Q. Does being creative in the workplace mean being creative in the kitchen?
A. Not necessarily. Most nights I don't have time to be creative — I'm too hungry! I need to be resourceful with the ingredients in the cupboard.

Q. Ever put on a dud dinner party?
A. Of course! I'm lucky to have forgiving friends with a sense of humour — worst case scenario, you can always call in takeaway.

Q. Do you think food and wine matching is overrated?
A. Only when people think about it too much — enjoying food with wine should be stress-free. Don't get too hung up about matching the right variety of wine with a dish — if you want to serve red wine with fish, go ahead, break the rules. You learn more that way.

Q. What's the most memorable meal you've eaten overseas?
A. It would have to be a paella in San Sebastien, Spain. I was about 23 years old, it was my first big adventure and even though paella is simple peasant food in Spain, I was blown away by the lovely combination of flavours and textures in the dish. Washed down with sangria — I was in heaven!

Q. What food would you quite happily never eat again?
A. Blue cheese — I can't stomach the flavour.

Q. What's one ingredient you always have in your pantry?
A. Cans of tuna.

Q. If you could invite three famous people to a dinner party, who would they be?
A. Considering this a hypothetical question, I will take the liberty to bring singer Jeff Buckley back from the dead as my first guest — he'd be the post-prandial entertainment. Second would be Robin Williams to keep us laughing all the way through, and third would be my partner so I can re-live the night with him once it was over.