November 15, 2017
Pressure and pride in My Kitchen
Representing Maori on a mainstream cooking show can be a difficult recipe, but Natasha Whitewood and Hera Waitai pulled it off with aplomb in the New Zealand version of My Kitchen Rules.
They didn’t win, but Ms Waitai says it gave them a chance to make their iwi, hapu and whanau proud.
The Rotorua duo work in the marketing arm of Te Wananga o Aotearoa and the Ngati Kuri wahine also has extensive kapa hakja exoerience.
She says they didn’t allow the hype of the show to overwhelm them – and years of marae cooking helped.
"There is no pressure like working in a marae kitchen. I truly believe that. We did know the competition was at the back of our minds but we had to push on, we had to just be us and put everything on the line," Ms Waitai says.
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