Packed - Paperback

by Eloise P. Emmett (Author), Kylie Berry (Designed by)

Eating is one of life's simple pleasures, Eloise Emmett believes even if she is eating from a container in the carpark while waiting at her kids dancing, she wants it to be delicious and enjoyable, and to feel good and well nourished after eating it.

This book was created so she could share what she has learnt over many years of being a chef, and most recently being a busy mum of three very active children. She has a very full life - they live on the Tasman Peninsula and her children attend a school in Hobart. For most of the past 10 years they commuted daily with the children to take them to school. And also take them to their many activities outside of school such as dancing, karate, football, cricket, swimming, art classes, acting classes and more. Eloise's husband was often away for work for long periods so she did this by herself the majority of the time. Eloise also run a busy accommodation and cooking workshop retreat on the Tasman Peninsula and is a freelance photographer, consultant for hospitality and publishing and food-stylist.

But she never allowed this to be an excuse to not find time to cook nutritious meals. Beside the fact that it would cost a fortune to feed her family on takeaways - the cost on their health was just something she is not willing to compromise on.

Packed contains over 80 nutrient dense recipes, not just to fill kids lunchboxes, although it will be a handy lunch box resource but for café level delicious meals ideas for on-the-go lifestyles. The book also contains how to prepare the food in a busy life and WHY we should prioritise eating well, exploring the costs to your wallet, health and the planet.

Eloise has plenty of professional experience behind her and is very well qualified to be pursuing a career in Cookbook publishing. Eloise was the head chef at The Astor grill and T42 in Hobart and had stints in 5 star hotels and resorts including Bedarra and Hayman islands before moving to the Tasman Peninsula nearly 20 years ago to run her own restaurant, The Mussel Boys, which was once described as one of the best country eateries in the state by leading food critics. Eloise always cooked with regional produce in her restaurant including oysters and mussels from nearby farms, venison, quail and wallaby farmed or hunted locally and fresh fish from local fisherman along with veggies fruits and more.

It wasn't until she had her own children and was attending children's playgroups and was working in the local primary school launch into learning pre-kinder cooking class that she saw first-hand the prevalence and normality of packet plastic food fed to children. Plastic packaged foods is not only creating disease in the children but bad for the environment too. And she witnessed the lack of basic cooking skills. Eloise said parents were surprisingly shocked at how easy basic recipes were to make. Eloise firmly believes that it is a lie sold to us through the packet food industry that cooking is hard and overly time consuming, and children will not eat well. The inspiration for Eloise's first book The Real Food for Kids Cookbook was all the recipes she cooked with the 0-4 year old children in the program at the launch into learning. She then when on to produce Seafood Everyday after hearing many people did not eat the recommended for good health, few serves of seafood each week as they believed Seafood was expensive and difficult to cook. Seafood Everyday also won 2 Gourmand Cookbook awards. Eloise then produced The Tasmania Pantry cookbook and The Tasmania Pantry 2 cookbook that have both won cookbook awards. Eloise has also helped many clients publish cookbooks.

Eloise lives on the Tasman Peninsula where she runs her Accommodation business and boutique cooking school Little Norfolk Bay Events and Chalets, teaching cooking workshops, weekend cooking retreats and Indulgence weekends.