Naomi Toilalo has always loved feeding people and absorbed cooking skills from her Nana and Mum while being raised on a farm in Lawrence, South Otago.
“We grew up in this tiny community and so many people around us knew how to bake and cook – it was part of the culture really,” she tells Kathryn Ryan.
Her latest venture is a cook book - Whānaukai Feel-good baking to share aroha. The recipes including one for Iced Buns Parāoa Pani Reka are in English and te reo Māori.
Naomi Toilalo Photo: Harpercollins.co.nz
Naomi says her favourite job has been as a shearer – not because of the job but the food, she says.
“I actually hated the job but if you counted down until smoko, my mum would bring up the most beautiful baking and food and then you’d have an epic lunch and an epic afternoon tea.
“It just made everything better.”
Baking has always been a love of hers.
“By the time I had my fourth daughter, the juggle of working and looking after my tamariki became a bit hard so I decided I’d let my husband do all the mahi and I’d look after my kids.”
“It’s a really privilege to be able to do that but a year in I was getting a bit fatigued, and I needed something creative.”
Naomi’s sister suggested she share her love of te reo and baking on Instagram.
“What it became was this creative outlet and this space to play while I still had little tamariki that needed a lot of my attention.
“There birthed another pēpi for me, another really special process for me.”
Naomi Toilalo Iced Buns - Parāoa Pani Reka Photo: Sarah Henderson
Naomi says if there was a bumper sticker for her life, it’d be ‘fake it till you make it’.
Which is how, she says, she ended up on TVNZ's Great Kiwi Bake Off.
“I started the show and just pretty much had a heat rash up my neck and couldn’t breathe properly and was in the bottom three in the first day or so.
“But I just got to this point where I thought I came here to have fun, so I just refreshed myself, pushed the reset button and then I ended up getting in the finals.”
“It was mind-blowing how much pressure you put yourself under in that process,” she says.
Since 2020 she has hosted The Giving Series, an online show where people nominate recipients to receive her baking.
“The joy of baking is sharing it with people, right?”
“I was baking one day, and I had this revelation, I just want to give it away.”
The show started during the Covid-19 level 3 lockdown, when Naomi would ask for people to share who they thought deserved some fresh baking.
“Honestly, the stories, you know people’s weddings were cancelled, people could get to funerals.”
It was the ultimate way of giving back, she says.
“I just feel like I’ve landed on what makes sense in this process."
