Kylie Flavell left a successful career as a food, travel and business editor in her native Australia to run away for food, wine and adventure in Rome. The self-described ‘Italophile’ has since picked up Italiano and spends her days cooking, eating, and writing. She has also returned to her editing roots with Romeing, a mag on how to live, eat and play like a local in the historic metropolis. Kylie is also now the host of When in Rome on TLN, which shows the world how to eat and live la dolce vita, and most recently stars in When Patrick Met Kylie: An Italian Food Love Affair, also on TLN. I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Ms. Flavell about eating, food porn, and actually living your dreams…
So you uprooted your successful career – your entire life really – and moved on a shoestring from Australia to Rome… How’s that going?
I think like many people from our generation, when somebody tells you something is impossible I find that to be more of an incentive to do it. People said, “You’re crazy! You think you can go to a foreign country where you know no one, you don’t speak the language and then you’re going to make a TV show and sell it all around the world?!” But life’s short and you have to do what you absolutely love.
I love food. I go to bed thinking about what I’m going to cook the next day. And I wanted to be somewhere where they love food as much as I do, and I am still as deliriously in love with Italy three years later. Now I’ve got two shows on TLN: When in Rome, showing people how to live like a local; I hate the tourist-y experience. And then there’s When Patrick Met Kylie, which is basically a road-trip through Italy and is James Bond meets Nigella and Jamie. It’s such an exciting country and it’s very high-paced. We get around on everything from vintage cars to luxury motorbikes to vespas.
This may seem like a redundant question but… Do you cook a lot of Italian?
I do! I follow all these bloggers and get so inspired. There’s no excuse these days to cook poorly. All you have to do is go on Instagram and you have inspiration. For me, I am constantly cooking then photographing it for our site. It’s almost become second nature to cook something and then document it. Foodies… we are united by Food Porn. Food Porn is the universal language.
What’s your fave restaurant in Rome?
It’s call Da Gino… it’s down an alleyway, they don’t take reservations but, like most things in Italy, if you tell the right story (like tell them how much you love pasta, that you’re a foodie) they’ll find you a table. All the politicians eat there, it’s very simple and it’s really rustic. I don’t like complicated food; I like food that almost makes you want to weep because it makes you so hungry.
Have you been to Toronto before and tried out our restaurant scene?
No, it’s my first time! Some of the viewers of the show tweeted at me because they wanted to take me out to make sure I ate well in Toronto but I’ve been so busy! I have heard so much about the food scene though. It seems Toronto does all these different, amazing kinds of cuisines so well because of its diverse immigrant population.
What are the three things in your kitchen that you can’t live without?
I do everything with a fork. After giving up my well-paying job in Australia, I’m so poor in Rome. I didn’t have enough money for cooking instruments so I used my fork to make pretty much everything. I cooked on a camp stove in my first apartment in the city. I was cooking risotto on that camp stove in my lap, if you can believe it. I didn’t have an oven either, I’d make cakes and lasagnas in my apartment and then go around the streets of the city begging restaurants to let me use their ovens to bake. I also used a wine bottle to roll my pasta dough; you really don’t need a rolling pin!
Speaking of wine bottles, I always say, “To love Italian food is to love wine.” What are your favourite vinos right now?
Oh that’s tough one! I think you can’t go wrong with a Vin Santo. It’s the perfect way to end a meal. I was a trattoria in Florence and they just bring it out to you without asking… it’s like your imperative to have it!
