132 The Australian Women’s Weekly|JUNE 2018
A
t the Demaio family’s
abundant Mornington
Peninsula farm in Victoria,
they’ve proven the old
adage “too many cooks
spoil the broth” well and truly wrong.
The kitchen of the charming wooden
home is bustling with people. There’s
coffee brewing on the stove, tomato
passata simmering, pine nuts roasting
in the oven and focaccia dough gently
rising on the kitchen bench; and
clearly an extra pinch of salt or
another stir of the pot from anyone
who walks past is intrinsic to the
perfection of every dish.
The kitchen is the heart of the
Demaio home, and it was here over
long summer days
bottling the bounty
of his father’s tomato
crop and making
salami with his
brothers that the
career of the popular
ABC presenter Dr
Alessandro Demaio
was born.
“Every summer
the entire extended
family would come
together to make
passata from Dad’s
tomatoes,” says
the host ofAsk the
Doctor. “We all
had a job, whether
it was picking the
tomatoes or peeling
and chopping, boiling
or bottling. There was
always a great sense
of fun and family
about those days, it’s
a tradition we still
look forward to.”
This joy of
food and family
togetherness inspired
a passion that has
taken Sandro, as he is
affectionately known,
around the world,
waging a war on
obesity and disease,
and prompted him
to pen a book,TheDoctor’s Diet, illed with simple
recipes and practical advice that’s
not just about waistlines, but global
wellbeing too.
“In Australia, more than two
in three adults are overweight or
obese. This is largely preventable,”
he says. “What my mum taught me
in the kitchen as a ive-year-old is
the solution to the world’s biggest
problems, obesity, sustainability and
the rise of chronic disease. It all
comes back to basics.”
It’s a beautiful early autumn day
whenThe Weeklymeets the Demaio
family at “Wilandra”, their property
near Balnarring. Under a sprawling
eucalypt, four generations, fromSandro’s 95-year-old grandma Bette,
down to his two-year-old niece, Mae,
gather together to share the bounty
of a late-summer harvest, and they’ve
invited us to join them.
These lazy lunches are particularly
precious to Sandro, who currently
lives in Geneva while working with
the United Nations’ World Health
Organisation (WHO). At just 33, the
Melbourne-born Harvard graduate
has become one of the world’s most
sought-after health academics.
Working with 194 countries
advocating for better health solutions,
he is at the forefront of the ight against
obesity. When he returns home to ilm
Ask the Doctor,this sanctuary far