Alexandra Tylee: Pipi, the cookbook
“The whole process of Pipi... has been about grief, friends, family and food. About creating a fairy story.”
Alexandra’s food philosophy is all about simple food cooked with care and attention to detail; food that nutures your body and your soul. Peppered throughout Pipi is an emotional story of life, loss and new beginnings. Anecdotes provide insights into a very personal journey. A journey shared through heartfelt dialogue and lifestyle photographs that embrace you and brings you into the conversation.
With the cookbook based on recipes from Pipi Cafe you get a very strong sense of what sitting in that pink painted room (if you’re not lucky enough to have dined there already) or eating with Alexandra, her family and friends would be like – understated and unpretentious but with a smattering of boho chic thrown in.
Childhood memories inspire some dishes. Holidays abroad or a first experience of a dish reflect others. Local Hawkes Bay produce (Pipi, the restaurant is in Havelock North) and seasonality shines throughout.
Even choosing the name Pipi was very symbolic. Alexandra wanted a name that captured the magic moment that happens in restaurants and cafes when very different people, music food etc come together. For New Zealanders it’s an iconic shellfish that historically littered our beaches, brought people together to go collect pipis – to dig with our toes in the sand at low tide and inevitably to eat with a gritty bit of sand.
For someone who’s life had been full of change, it is beautifully encapsulated as, “For me, every day feels like we are starting all over again, every night is different...”.
For more information check out the website: