About - Shared Kitchen

About Us

Our raison dêtre

The aim with Shared Kitchen was to create a website that was information-driven, a source of tips and tricks, one full of, ‘Did you know’, ‘Here’s an easy way’, and other useful ideas, set alongside great recipes that people would want to cook, rather than just look at and dream about making. The focus of the recipes has always been to keep people cooking, to keep them in touch with the food they eat, and to provide inviting and easy-enough-to-do recipes with the skills and knowledge at their fingertips to ensure success. The recipes and posts include many links to take the reader through to more information and ideas and other recipes. The Cook’s Notes section of the website is hugely popular with regular Shared Kitchen users, and also on Google.

It has always been important to me to teach, educate, help and assist others, and that is the backbone that runs through Shared Kitchen. I dig into subjects and share what I know as fact or my own opinion. I don’t shy away from admitting mistakes or my own shortcomings when they occur and I share the experiences as a way of learning and moving forward. I’ve found our audience responds to a touch of humour, especially when it is self-deprecating, and I often use this tool to lighten weighty subjects, to keep readers engaged while hammering home facts, figures and opinions, and getting them thinking about what it is they are eating and cooking and feeding their families. From time to time, we have to climb on the hobby horse to bleat about something or other. Our Shared Kitchen family is welcome to join in on the conversation.

Shared Kitchen has built a deep reference chest of material in the archives. There are simply hundreds of recipes and posts on the site all available to the Shared Kitchen family. From the get-go I have used American weights and measures in recipes (and UK imperial measures when there is a critical difference in fluid measurements), and terminology where appropriate.

We thought now was the right time for a site refresh and to clarify what we hold dear at Shared Kitchen.

Shared Kitchen Values

We love sharing what we learn, and encourage everyone to keep cooking from scratch, hence our name Shared Kitchen, and our by-line Real Food From Scratch. We launched officially in January 2015 and we hold fast and true to everything these words imply.

First up, everything in moderation – a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Some sweets, though not too many.

We cook meat. We don’t apologise for it.

We make heaps of vegetable dishes, and some of them may be suitable for vegans, but we don’t endorse any type of diet other than one that consists of as much fresh homecooked food as possible.

We find great joy in cooking for people and want you to experience that joy, too, so our attitude is positive, encouraging you to have a go.

Our aim is to make recipes accessible and easy so you can achieve success with them and grow in confidence.

You can check out our credentials below.

Shared Kitchen philosophy

The philosophy behind Shared Kitchen is to cook food from scratch and to encourage others to do so, with the total belief that good food keeps you well and makes you happy. The aim is to encourage families and friends to cook and eat together; to advocate home gardening; to endorse good, safe and sustainable farming practices; to support farmers’ markets; and to cultivate artisanal producers.

These are lofty goals, but most attained weekly on the Shared Kitchen site.

About Julie Biuso

Julie Biuso is one of New Zealand’s best-known and most respected culinary personalities, with 17 books to her name, and more than 35 years’ experience as a television and radio broadcaster, and 33 years as a popular magazine food editor. In 2015 she launched the successful Shared Kitchen blog site.

Julie’s formal culinary training began at the Le Cordon Bleu School in London, where she was tutored by founder Muriel Downes before taking up a teaching position there. She returned to New Zealand as Principal of the New Zealand Cordon Bleu School, which operated in Auckland during the 1980s, and she retains the connection, now as an Ambassador for Le Cordon Bleu Institute New Zealand.

Julie with books — Julie, 2016, with a shelf of her own books and with translations in Dutch, German, French, Polish and Danish, and USA versions, and other books she has contributed to.

Her career has also included long stints working for Air New Zealand, developing international menus and creating wine matches, and writing the menus. Julie was chosen as a personal chef for the late Maestro Luciano Pavarotti on both his visits to New Zealand and has cooked for prime ministers, ambassadors and dignitaries in New Zealand, Italy and the UK.

In broadcasting, her appearances have spanned the globe and include 33 years with New Zealand’s national broadcaster, Radio NZ, along with numerous guest spots on Radio BBC in Britain and dozens of radio stations in the USA. She presented a weekly food segment on Breakfast Television TV1 for 5 years, had a 7-part television series on Italian food on TV1, and has appeared on television programmes in Singapore, Malaysia, Spain, USA, UK and Saudi Arabia, and in a Satellite Television Show (mostly filmed live) in the USA screened to 21 television channels.

In print Julie’s career is equally impressive. She has worked as a food editor for more than 30 years for many prestigious publications, often holding key positions in two or three titles at any one time. This includes 17 years for Cuisine magazine, 5 years for Viva New Zealand Herald, 13 years for More magazine, 12 years across several ACP magazine titles and 7 years for Dish magazine. She has also contributed to American magazines such as Bon Appetit and Living Without magazines, and in the UK to the BBC Good Food magazine, among other titles. And alongside all this media work, she found time to write 16 bestselling cookbooks and a memoir.

Among the honours Julie has received for her writing achievements are nine Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, 22 Culinary Quill awards from the NZ Guild of Foodwriters, a Gold Ladle at the Le Cordon Bleu World Food Media Awards, a Journalism Award from the University of Canterbury and two wins for her books in the lifestyle section of New Zealand’s top literary awards, the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards and the Montana Book Awards (now morphed into the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards).

She has been a panellist and food presenter at numerous international events in Australia, UK, USA and France. She has also taught and given addresses in schools and colleges, made presentations at Master Classes in New Zealand and the UK, been a guest speaker at prestigious events such as Pompeii Exhibition, Te Papa, Wellington, and worked on many charity events, including South Auckland Totara Hospice, Rotary and dozens of events for schools and women’s groups around the country.

In early 2015 she launched her blog site Shared Kitchen, which received early recognition and was a finalist in the Visual award in the NZ Guild of Foodwriters Awards in 2015, and won best Food Website in NZ in 2015 in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Her daughter Ilaria is co-collaborator of Shared Kitchen.

Julie, an Aucklander, moved to Waiheke Island in 2015 and has found time to produce published poetry and to organise the annual poetry festival on Waiheke in association with National Poetry Day. She has also launched a range of products under the Shared Kitchen label sold on Waiheke and at premium artisan food stores around New Zealand. In 2023 Julie commenced a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Auckland, and is currently working on her first novel.

Julie can be contacted at [email protected]

About Ilaria Biuso

Ilaria with zucchini fritters 1 — Ilaria with zucchini fritters

Ilaria’s interests are food and cooking, animals, travel, languages and music; she learned classical piano from when she was 8 years old.

She commenced an Arts degree at the University of Auckland straight after school, then spent a gap year in Annecy, France, where she taught piano to young students, before completing her BA in 2012, majoring in Art History and minoring in Classical Studies and French.

Her work history includes long stints as Gallery Assistant at Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, and Communications Manager at Crate Brewery, UK. Ilaria has also assisted Julie on magazine shoots, book shoots, food presentations and shows and cooking classes over many years and enjoys their collaboration on Shared Kitchen. While Ilaria doesn’t have any formal culinary training, growing up in a household where food has always been at its heart has given her an innate passion for cooking and an insatiable interest in exploring new tastes and ingredients. Her studies in art history have nurtured a creative eye, which makes her the perfect person to co-ordinate the Shared Kitchen Instagram account.

She now resides in Titirangi, Auckland, with her partner Steve and their dog and cat and a much-loved new addition, a wee daughter called Remi. Her favourite way to spend a lazy Sunday is for her and Steve to take Remi and the dog for a lengthy beach or park walk and to get in a spot of gardening, followed by baking a cake while Remi rests. She describes her recipes as healthy, uncomplicated and full of flavour. Ilaria co-wrote the Shared Kitchen cookbook with Julie and handles social media for Shared Kitchen and contributes recipes and commentary to the Shared Kitchen site.