People often look at me with surprise and ask me why, when, where and how I got into food, let alone have my own food show on television. The truth is, whilst I can chart how it all happened I am still somewhat surprised, perplexed and very happy that it did.

Without going through my family history, somewhere along the way I developed not just a love of food but also a love of cooking. I put it down to the fact that ever since I was a young boy I have always been a performer and a large part of being a performer is about being creative. Having a love of food is a good place to begin the journey into diverse and fulfilling food experiences, along with the understanding that food is about creativity and the ability to express your personality. Just look at all the rock star chefs we have on television now, they are all about expressing themselves and their art. I have done this all my life through dance, choreography, acting and now, through my cooking — and don’t I feel lucky!

My very first TV cooking appearance was back in the mid-seventies when I appeared on the Helen O’Grady show making a toasted cheese sandwich — the perfect after-school snack. Helen O’Grady was one of my first drama teachers at John Curtin Theatre Arts High School, a rather out-there lady who wore very large jewellery, had big hair, wore lots of make-up and just happened to have her own afternoon kids show on TV in Perth, Western Australia. I am horrified to remember that I used single sliced and wrapped processed cheese which melted under the studio lights. Thankfully I have moved on from that.

My next foodie experience was when I scored a job at my local Red Rooster outlet. Red Rooster is a chicken chain serving up the usual fare of roast chicken, chips, peas, gravy, corn and I was their new head chef at the ripe old age of 16. Yep, for $1.45 per hour I cooked, cleaned and served up everything. Looking back on it now it amounted to slave labour but I also learnt how to work hard, respect my ingredients and have integrity in my work. One of the best things about the job was back in those days (late seventies) when I made the chicken rolls, I would use the left over chickens from the day before. As there was no meat on the wings they were supposed to be discarded but I would fill up bags of them and keep them in the fridge. Then at the end of the night I would make sure to cook extra chips just in case we had a late run for them. At the end of the night my mum and I would go home with a couple of bags of hot chips and cold wings to a house full of friends waiting for a feast.

One of the managers at the store when I started was a Bangladeshi guy called Gerry who left Red Rooster to start his own place cooking traditional Bangladeshi and Indian food. I used to go down to his market stall and help him cook and serve customers on weekends. During this time I also met a Chinese martial arts instructor, Jonny, who also had a stall at the markets. I became friends with him, often hanging out at his stall helping where I could with cooking or serving. At the time, I was a full-time student with the Western Australian Ballet Company and Jonny, in between cooking and prepping food, would give me special Chinese liniments to help with sore, strained and often torn muscles. These guys were great as they had a passion for their traditional food and a desire to share that with people, they opened my eyes and taste buds to world cuisine. They also had a great zest for life and it seemed to me that their food brought them joy — cooking and sharing was as necessary and natural as breathing. I would like to think that this was their gift to me.

Mum was a good cook but as we were a family of five living on a single income, there really was not a lot of room to play with ingredients or to get too fancy. We used to eat a lot of lamb, or I should say mutton, as Mum would buy a side of lamb for a pretty cheap price and we would diligently eat our way through it. I love lamb but to this day my brother and sister have difficulty sitting down to a meal of it.

When I left home and moved to Melbourne to study at the Australian Ballet School, I got a job working at Taco Bill, a Mexican restaurant. I started out making the dips and the salads, which was fun and I was about to be promoted to the ovens but alas my dance studies were suffering and I had to give my nightly cooking career away. However, being away from home meant cooking every meal for myself and thus began my journey into produce, experiments, burnt toast, weird concoctions, the odd bout of food poisoning and the power of cooking a romantic dinner. I am happy to say I am still on this journey but have left the food poisoning bit back in the depths of the eighties.

I was a dancer with the Sydney Dance Company, and spent ten years travelling the world, which for a foodie was just wonderful. I loved performing in different countries and even more so, discovering the foods of those countries. I never understood how some members of the troupe could eat out at a typical fast-food joint we have back at home instead of a restaurant to try the local cuisine. When I started doing films, I was lucky enough to make movies in a range of countries and had the opportunity to really sample the regional culture and food. I learned that the food in L.A., Texas and New York is as different to one another as the food of Northern and Southern Italy. I love these contrasts and find them both inspiring and exciting.

Being an actor in Australia is a tough gig and whether you like it or not, periods of award-winning work can be followed by dark, angst-filled periods of no work. What does one do with all that spare time and creative energy? If you are like me, you cook. I started making my own sourdough breads, sausages, salamis, beer and smoked meats. I dabbled in French cuisine, Thai food, Tex Mex, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Barbecue, slow-braising, wok-cooking, and more. I made beer ice cream, beer sorbet, beer sausages even a beer cheese cake — as you may have noticed, I love beer. In short, I cooked with no rules or guidelines, I played around, had fun and in doing so, discovered what cooking is all about.

Throughout my life and work, food has been a great source of interest, creativity, passion, inspiration and occasionally income but I still haven’t answered the question of how I ended up with my own food show. The simple answer is luck.

Perhaps from watching too many cooking shows and from doing a few cooking segments on TV myself, I thought it would be cool to be a TV-cooking-bloke. One day I read in the paper that Channel 7 were looking for a host for a new food show. I did everything I could to find out all about it hoping to get an audition but it was to no avail. Then one Friday afternoon a producer I had been working with rang me and mentioned that he was doing the new food show. Unfortunately for me he had developed the show for a particular chef so I was out of the picture. Early the next morning, I received a phone call from that same producer explaining he was down at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival with a crew ready to shoot the pilot but the chef had inexplicably pulled out of the show. Since he had no host, he asked whether would I come down and fill in — of course, I said yes. Half an hour later I was hosting the show — interviewing wonderful food producers and tasting some great food. Upon watching the pilot and seeing some of my other TV food presentations, the producer, the sponsors and the network decided I could have the gig. Am I glad that chef pulled out!

That show was called The Food Trail. We shot six episodes in Victoria in 2005 and four in Tasmania in 2006, it was shown nationally on Channel 7 and rated very well. A year after we shot the last episode of The Food Trail a different production company — WTFN — developed Mercurio’s Menu and the rest is history.

This book features recipes from series one and two as well as recipes from the various talented chefs who appeared on the show. People often ask me where I get my recipes from and the simple answer is, I make them up. The great thing about the show is that it is produce-driven so my task is to work out something interesting to do with the produce I am filming. Sometimes a recipe will just pop into my head and other times I will rack my brains, look through all of my cookbooks and trawl the internet for clues as to how other people may have used the particular food item. I will then play around with my ideas, build a recipe then cook it and see if it works. Quite often when I make a dish on camera it is the first time I have cooked it and my fingers are crossed that it will work. So far I haven’t had a disaster!

I hope you enjoy cooking the recipes from this book. Think of the recipes as guidelines — sure, cook them as they are written but don’t be afraid to make changes according to your own taste.

Add a bit more of this, or a little less of that when and where you want, and don’t forget to write down what you do so that you can re-create it and continue to hone the recipe to your liking.

Personally, I love to write with a pencil in my cookbooks, it’s kind of irreverent and naughty but at the same time freeing and fun. And that's what cooking is all about — being creative, nourishing the soul as well as the body and sharing the joy with family and friends.

Cheers!