October 12, 2025 • 23 mins
Nadia Lim is a New Zealand chef, nutritionist, and farmer who lives and works on Royalburn Station — her family’s high-country farm on the Crown Range in Central Otago — with her husband Carlos and their three sons. At Royalburn, Nadia leads a regenerative approach to food production, growing grains and seeds, producing pasture-raised eggs, honey, and vegetables, and raising what she proudly calls the world’s best lamb. A qualified dietitian with a degree in nutrition and dietetics from Otago University, Nadia’s grounding in the science of food has shaped her lifelong philosophy: keep it simple, seasonal, healthy, and delicious. In 2013, she co-founded My Food Bag, helping thousands of Kiwi families cook fresher, healthier meals at home. Through her TV series including Nadia’s Farm, Nadia’s Comfort Kitchen, and New Zealand with Nadia Lim, she shares an honest, behind-the-scenes view of real food production. Nadia is also the author of several bestselling cookbooks celebrating wholesome, flavourful food for busy lives.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed Be
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Gooday, welcome to real life. I'm John Cown and I'm
delighted to have in the studio tonight, just one of
the many Nadia limbs. I assume there must be a
batch of them. One turning out TV shows, another running
a very special farm, another writing a dozen cookbooks, another
one brewing beer, another business woman, and another one bringing
up another one being a mother of three young kids.
(00:36):
And so I'm very privileged to have at least one
of those Nadias here. You can't possibly be doing all
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Is I'm the third one? Number three?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Such a busy life.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
It is a busy phase. Yeah, but I kind of
you know, life is kind of like seasons, right. I
feel like in the future, maybe I'll go through a
different season where it's not as busy.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh okay, because at the moment, I imagine you have
to make an appointment to talk to yourself. Do you
ever meet yourself coming in the other way at an
airport and think, yes, I'm getting a bit too busy.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
I haven't got to that stage yet. I'm in trouble.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
So what's the top of your activity list at the moment,
What's what's what's.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Right at this very moment. I start on my book tour,
my cookbook tour tomorrow, Okay, very excited about that. I'll
be starting in Wellington, then off to Palmerston, North topur Yeah,
all sorts of places right down to like Winton and
the Cargo and all around the place.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Listeners, you can be very envious because I am laying
my hands on my own copy, a copy of Nadia's
Farm Kitchen. It's a beautiful book and it's huge, it is.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
It's very hefty, isn't it? Yeah? Good value, I reckon.
I haven't actually weighed I'd love to weigh it on
the scales, but I feel like it's about two key
those something like that.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's a huge, beautifully produced book. I mean, is this
your This must be your your biggest book? It is?
It is actually and is this your twelfth?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I think it could be the thirteenth.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I think thirteenth.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, if you include my kids books, I think it's
the thirteen.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Okay. Now, I believe that this was a dream that
you had at thirteen, that you'd write a cookbook. Aren't
you overachieving in this area?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Do you think when I was twelve twelve, you're right? Yeah.
I watched Jamie Oliver on The Naked Chef when I
was twelve years old, and he's ten years older than me,
so he was twenty two at the time, and I
just fell in love with you, with him and what
he did, and I decided I want to be like
Jamie one day. I want to be the female version
of Jamie.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, And so from then on I started writing my
own recipes in my little notebook.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah. It kind of took off from there.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And it's done very well. I mean, of course the
big boost in twenty and eleven.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yes, Master Chef, which is gosh, fifteen years ago now, yeah,
I know. I feel like that's when we I might
have I think I might have come on your show
you had straight after Master Chef. I mean I was
very fresh, just straight out of the show, and I
would have been very nervous talking to you.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Oh well, I hope I put you at ease. But anyhow,
I was just thinking, I've been doing the show for
twenty years and you're the only person I've spoken to
so often. So you must be the most interesting person
in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Dishing out all the conflidents today.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
You've got a TV show on as well.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, well, the TV show kind of came. I was
filming that end of last year and earlier this year,
and it's out on TV at the moment on Channel
three seven thirty on Wednesdays. And then I suddenly thought,
I need to put a book together with all these
recipes because people are going to come at me asking
for the recipes, so they need somewhere to find them.
So that's how why I kind of put the book together,
(03:44):
and the timing just seemed right at the time. I
haven't put a book out in four years because life's
been that busy with the three kids. I've got three
boys nine, seven and two and.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
They understandably busy.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Then yes, pretty and then you know, a farm. We
went into farming six years ago, so that's kept us
super super busy too and everything else. But it just
felt right. I was like, right, I've got all the
recipes from the TV shows that I've done over the
last few years, and I've got the energy to put
this book together. Let's do it, Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Nadia's Farm kitchen, and of course the farm is part
of the star of the book and of the TV show.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yes, yeah, yeah, And is.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It such a great star. It's so photogenic your place.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Oh, it is like every time, I mean, whenever you
draw the curtains and you look outside, you never tie
those beautiful mountains. They're so majestic, like they're just huge,
and they make you feel so small. And they change.
It's just like a looking at a painting each time,
and they really changed throughout the seasons.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Just from minute to minute.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I mean, I don't know how you get any work
done because I was down there earlier this year and
just staring at those mountains or the other aspects of
the scenery out in central Otago because you're the arrow town,
aren't you up in the Crown Range there, and it's
just you just I just stop and gorp. And so
you haven't got enough punch time for gorping, have you? You should?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I should do more of it. I think we should
all probably.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Do more of that. Put it on your to do list. Trikes.
So you've mentioned six years into farming, and by the way,
on the show, the Farm's a star, You're the star.
The Carlos scrubs up well on this camera too, doesn't Heah.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
He does, doesn't he? I hand on heart. I think
he is much better talent than me. And I keep
saying to him, you're a way better talent than me,
like you should we should be we should reverse roles.
You should be doing what I do. It's better at
it than me.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Because he's got farming genes going back's.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Generation now, so he was kind of and that's that's
just like in New Zealand. It goes back further than
that as well.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And stand, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So he was the only one to break the line
of farmers, which his father was a bit just brought
about when he was much younger. But now he's put
the line back together. He's gone back into it now, all.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Right, and he's in his niche he's obviously been pre
programmed from generations back for that. Well.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
When we first met, so we've met over twenty years ago,
twenty one years ago, and we were kind of together
from that first night that we met, and he always
said to me, I remember on our second date, he
kind of pre warned me that if we were going
to end up being together long term, that i'd have
to be okay, moving on to a farm, because that's
(06:43):
what he planned to do one day.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Okay, so you're fore warned, Yes, okay, you warned him
that you had your program.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
My reply was something along the lines of, well, when
you know, in twenty years or so, I'm going to
write cookbooks and have a cooking show on TV called
Food in the News, Food in the Nude, A little
bit cheeky.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Carlos died in the wall Farmer. You a city girl,
and more than that, spending seven years of your childhood
up in Malaysia transplanted into Central Otago. Was there a
shock or did you just fly into it and think
this is what I'm iportant now?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
There wasn't any shock. Actually, I kind of felt like
that's where I always should have been.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, but I think I like even so, I grew
up in Auckland until I was six years old, and
then we moved to Malaysia, where my father's from, and
lived there until I was almost thirteen, so seven years
over there. So my whole childhood was in the city.
But I feel like I've always been more of a
country rural person at heart. Yeah, I kind of I've
(07:49):
always thought, oh, he'd really like to live in the country.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I wondered whether you get lonely there.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
No, not at all. Actually, surprisingly when so we've got
neighbors that are the closest neighbor's probably a kilometer away,
but you kind of get you become closer to your
neighbors in the country because you rely on each other
for things like, you know, doing sharing drop offs with
(08:16):
school because you're much further away, or the water pipe
bursts and you need someone to help you fix that,
or you need help shooting the rabbits on the farm
to keep the rabbit population down. So we actually do
a lot more with our neighbors than we kind of
did in the city. Yeah, oddly enough.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it. More separation and yet
more interaction. And yeah'm sure a lot of people living
in the city, they might have four or five neighbors
around the offense line and might only know one of them.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, that's right.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, And I suppose also when you do something like
perhaps break your back.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yes, you know, you've done a lot of research otherwise
you're a clairvoyant.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So that that's when people were helping out.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, yeah, I broke my back skiing just over two
years ago when my youngest he was only about five
months five six months old at the time. You know,
I was still respeeding him, and obviously he was very
dependent on me, so it was very very tricky because
I couldn't get up to get him, so I really
had to rely on anyone and everyone who came by,
(09:22):
you know and popped into the house to help me,
you know, Yeah, yeah, that's the neighbors were incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeahs all came.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Around and helped to get him for me and helped
cook meals and all sorts.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
As if having a five month old isn't hard enough
as it is. Yeah, now, that must have been a
pretty low time. Look, I'm you always come across so
full of energy and full of and and you're so
obviously resilient and capable and competent to do all these things,
but surely you must have run your tank dry at times.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Definitely. I think it was about March last year. Actually,
I'd say it was probably my lowest point of ever
reached in my life. And that, you know, I think
everyone's got to go through that at some stage, right,
And it just happened to be the perfect storm. I think,
you know, having kids does take a big toll on
(10:20):
your reserves, and I would say it was probably quite
depleted and never had had much of a chance to
catch up. And then yeah, when it rains at pause,
doesn't it. It often often happens that way. And so
you know, I had the three kids, including the newborn
who you know, was still feeding the farm. We were
right in the thick of it with introducing a lot
(10:42):
of new things to the farm, trying out new processes
and systems and new types of farming and everything, and
taking on quite big risks in that area. And yet
I had my own work going on and own pressures
and stuff. And then Darius at just being very candid,
but Carlos and I we've been together for twenty one years,
(11:03):
and what probably naturally happens in a lot of relationships
is when you've been together for that long, you maybe
start taking each other for granted. Sometimes, you know, after
nineteen years have been together. I think we both agree that,
you know, we started we were taking each other for granted.
But luckily we realized that and we really worked hard
(11:25):
on that to be become self aware of it, and
then to make some steps and take some action to
not take each other for granted, and we're lucky. Yeah,
we made it. We made it through a very rough,
tough patch, but came out the other end like much
stronger than what we were before.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Well that's sounding like a good story. Yeah, But I'm
very intrigued to know what some of these steps and
things were that you did, and so in the second half,
I'd like to just find out a little bit more
about how someone gets up off the floor if they're
in a low patch in there, and perhaps in their
mood and in their relationships, to find out what you did,
what recipes you applied to your Literally I'm talking with
(12:07):
Nadia Limb. This is real life on new Stalk Seed
b B back of you in just a minute. Welcome
back to real life. I'm John Cown speaking of Nadia
Limb and Tammy Neilson stuck ahead in the door to
sing a song for us.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, I love that song. She actually played on our
farm at Rowburne Station a few months ago, I think
it was. Yeah, well maybe it was in some it
might have actually been earlier this year. Yeah. So we've
got a newish events area there and we stacked up
these hay bales and her stage was Haybales Fantasy. It
was amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And was it a concert that.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It was? I think it was a I think it
was a private event. Yeah, but I snuck down to watch.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now before the break, you're talking about how PEPs last
year you got pretty low and PEPs physically emotionally exhausted,
and perhaps things not too brilliant in the relationship side
of things too. And yet you went on to say
how things have now swung around and you're now back
in a good play. I'd like to know how you
(13:11):
got better. First of all, was it a shock to
you that you could be that low, because you must have,
over the years accumulated a lot of a track record
of thinking I can do this, I can conquer anything,
because you have conquered so many things.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Definitely, I think I was, like, I've always kind of
believed that resilience was my middle name, and I remember
when I was a master chief. Actually, Josh Emmett, who
was one of the judges, then he said at the end,
he said, you're so you're really soft on the outside,
but inside you're as tough as iron. You've never seen
anything so tough, and yeah, I've always kind of believed
(13:48):
that I was really, really tough. And it was very humbling,
I have to say, one of life's lessons. And everyone's
got to be humbled at some stage in their life.
But when I found myself on the kitchen floor just
crying and telling myself I couldn't do it, couldn't face everything,
it was very humbling to realize that I wasn't as
tough as what I believed for the believed for the
(14:10):
last thirty eight thirty nine years. Yeah, but a great
lesson to learn. You know, no one's invincible.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Where did the solutions start to come from? Did you
come up with them yourself?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah? I did. My husband was away at the time,
so he was traveling for four months for an international
farming scholarship. They had one, so I left home yea,
with the three kids and the farm and everything else
going on. So that was tough in itself. But really
I looked at it quite logically, I guess you could say,
and that's probably how my brain kind of works with things.
(14:43):
But I looked at it with a step by step
process and I thought, okay, step number one, I have
to work on myself I have to make sure that
I'm that I've got my strength back up. And then
once I've achieved that, then step number two, I'll work,
you know, with Carlos on our relationship and we have
some things to address openly and honestly, and we'll work
(15:04):
through that. And then once that's done, step number three
then I really want to, you know, really work on
being the best mum that I can be.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
These are a section headers of your next book, because
it's going to be so that first section starting to
make yourself a priority? What sort of things did you
start to do because you've got you've got business to run,
farm to run, three kids running around the place. What
did you start to do? What could you do?
Speaker 3 (15:33):
First step was definitely realizing that I've been a bit
of a martyr. Yeah, that was kind of going on.
And you know, I always kind of thought, I can
never rest. I've got to keep going. I'm going to
keep going. I've got to keep going. But that was
a bit silly, really, like everyone deserves a break. I
look back at it and I can kind of unpeel
the layers and I can now see that a lot
(15:54):
of it comes from my upbringing. So my father being
an immigrant from Malaysia, from the Laisia. So he's Chinese.
It's like ethnically Chinese that was born and grew up
in Malaysia. And he came from a very poor family,
like I'm very very poor. You know. He tells us
stories of them having to share one can of beans
(16:17):
between ten of them, so they bought it down into
a soup. And I grew up. My brother and my
sister and I were never allowed to leave a single
grain of rice on our plates because he would find
that offensive because it would remind him of what his
mother and aunties went through in the rice famine back
in China, so where they were starving, so very poor,
(16:38):
and his ticket out of poverty was education. So he
did very well at school. He was a very hard
work and he did really well at school, and that
was how he got out of poverty. And so he
managed to get a bit of a scholarship to come
to New Zealand and study engineering over here. But to
make that all happen, I mean, he had to work
so hard. He was working several jobs while he was
(16:59):
at university to get through. And so that work ethic,
I think has always been drilled and to me from
a very young age, and same as my brother and sister,
and I think there was this belief that you have
to earn your rest, like you, you need to work
and work, and you need to keep going to prove
that you deserve a rest. Really, it does a great
(17:23):
thing to believe it. I mean, maybe a bit of it.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, it does. You work harder, you achieve more, you
work harder. Still, you achieve more, but you work harder
than that, and you start to achieve less and you
work much, and that your crash.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
That's right, exactly, And that's that's what I've learned. It
sounds silly, It's kind of obvious, isn't it. But sometimes
when you know you it's been so ingrained in from
your childhood, it's hard to unpick.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So a revolution going on in your head saying actually
I need this is not selfish.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I need to that's right, And for me to do
the best work and be the best friend and mother
and wife and daughter and sister and all of that,
I need to. Actually I do need to have rest
for myself when I shouldn't feel like that's selfish at all.
Things that helped other things, like practical things I knew
(18:12):
I'd always put off, like I always did a lot
of exercise that was kind of incorporated into my daily life,
so like in the garden and just running around after
the kids and all of that, but never kind of
set aside formal time to do anything in particular. But
I started. That was one of the habits I have changed.
And so instead of kind of going, Okay, I'll get
(18:36):
to a pilates class once I've done done my eight
hours of work, and once I've done all of this
with the kids, once I've cocked dinner, and once I've
done the dishes, and once I've done all my ADMINI emails.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And yes, I've only got to be another thirty seven
hours of stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Whereas I started doing it the other way around, as like,
right exercises a priority, I'm going to do that first
and everything else can wait, and then I'll get to
the other stuff. And I started, you know, maybe watching
a bit of comedy at nighttime instead of thinking I
had to keep going with all of you know, life
admin things and all the work tasks.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, well that sounds like amazing. Congratulations on pulling yourself together,
and you pulled your relationship together with Carlos. Yes, now
I think it was away at that time. Did that
make it easier or harder?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Surprisingly, it made it easier. It was actually a blessing
in disguise that he was away for so long, and
we realized that we hadn't been so we'd been together
for nineteen years at that point and we'd only spent
no more than two weeks apart, which is quite crazy
as well, like to be joined at the hit for
that long.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I guess that would have been when you were locked
in the house master chief.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Oh that sorry, that was the longest. Yeah, other than that,
that was the long snow So that was actually ten
ten eleven weeks, So you're right, that was the longest
time we'd spent apart. But other than that, we'd only
ever spent about two weeks apart. But because he was
away and he was mainly in Brazil at the time actually,
and that I think it's like an eight hour difference.
So there was never a a very good time to call.
(20:09):
He was very busy on this farming scholarship, visiting farms
all around the world, and you know, whenever it was
the right time for him to call was the wrong
time for me. Because I was putting the kids to
bed and doing all of that. So we actually had
to take to writing to each other well emailing. So
writing would have been a lot more romantic, but it's
email in these days and luckily so that I feel
(20:34):
like that actually was one of the keys to saving us,
because written communication is actually really really handy because you
can have time to think about what you're saying. You're
not reacting in the heat of the moment. If we
talked on the phone, we might have we probably would
have exploded at each other and I could you can
(20:55):
sit on it, you know, just think about am I
being am I saying this in a respectful way, and
you have your time to think about it. And so
it was a much better form of commun munication for
us to get everything out there. And yeah, it really worked,
and I'm very proud of of us both because we
(21:16):
worked through stuff and we come out the other side
even stronger than we were before.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
That's fantastic. You're a DIY person and so you've saved
yourself a fortune on counselor's fees by counseling yourself.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Well, I had actually to be I'm always very candid
and honest, Like I had actually signed contacted a therapist
and was ready to go and talk to them, but
then yeah, I was on the wait list and then
found out, you know, and decided, oh, don't actually need this.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Well that's fantastic. The farm itself. It is it experimental
or are you sort of going along principles that other
people have sort of worked out for you?
Speaker 3 (21:53):
I'd say, mixture. We have done a lot of experimental things,
and so we've kind of been I guess you could
say in some ways like pioneers in some areas. For example,
our on farm mobile micro ABATOI, there's only US Rawburn
Station and one other farm called holy Cown, Cambridge that
has a license to have an on farm micro abatua.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So that means you're sort of drive by a shooting
sort of thing. That it's not quite no, not at all.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
No, No, it is quite gory. I'm going to be honest,
but it is. I think, you know, and I mean
this that if you're going to eat meat, I do
believe it is the nicest, best way to dispatch the
animal in a farming system, but it is it's very
rare because the regulations are are huge. It's they're very
hard to get around, but who knows, it might become
(22:43):
more of a common thing around the country, which would
be great.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, Nadia, there's so much I'd like to have talked
to you about. I'm just gonna have to get you
back again to talk to you again for another four years,
hopefully not even that long, because there's so much and
there's so much that you're contributing to New Zealand. And
you're contributing to our to our nutrition, you're contributing to
our entertainment, and the thing that you're doing down there
in Central Otago I think is perhaps changing the way
(23:07):
that people do agriculture in New Zealand. Fantastic talking to you,
wish you all the best. We'll go out on some
of your favorite music. I think we're listening to Coming
Through by the War on Drugs. Okay, I don't know this.
I'm going to listen with interest. Nadia, Thank you so
much for coming in.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Thank you John. Great to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
As always, this is real life on News talk EDB.
Back with you again next week.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
For more from News Talk SEDB. Listen live on air
or online and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio,
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed Be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Gooday, welcome to real life. I'm John Cown and I'm
delighted to have in the studio tonight, just one of
the many Nadia limbs. I assume there must be a
batch of them. One turning out TV shows, another running
a very special farm, another writing a dozen cookbooks, another
one brewing beer, another business woman, and another one bringing
up another one being a mother of three young kids.
(00:36):
And so I'm very privileged to have at least one
of those Nadias here. You can't possibly be doing all
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Is I'm the third one? Number three?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Such a busy life.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
It is a busy phase. Yeah, but I kind of
you know, life is kind of like seasons, right. I
feel like in the future, maybe I'll go through a
different season where it's not as busy.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh okay, because at the moment, I imagine you have
to make an appointment to talk to yourself. Do you
ever meet yourself coming in the other way at an
airport and think, yes, I'm getting a bit too busy.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
I haven't got to that stage yet. I'm in trouble.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
So what's the top of your activity list at the moment,
What's what's what's.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Right at this very moment. I start on my book tour,
my cookbook tour tomorrow, Okay, very excited about that. I'll
be starting in Wellington, then off to Palmerston, North topur Yeah,
all sorts of places right down to like Winton and
the Cargo and all around the place.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Listeners, you can be very envious because I am laying
my hands on my own copy, a copy of Nadia's
Farm Kitchen. It's a beautiful book and it's huge, it is.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
It's very hefty, isn't it? Yeah? Good value, I reckon.
I haven't actually weighed I'd love to weigh it on
the scales, but I feel like it's about two key
those something like that.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's a huge, beautifully produced book. I mean, is this
your This must be your your biggest book? It is?
It is actually and is this your twelfth?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I think it could be the thirteenth.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I think thirteenth.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, if you include my kids books, I think it's
the thirteen.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Okay. Now, I believe that this was a dream that
you had at thirteen, that you'd write a cookbook. Aren't
you overachieving in this area?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Do you think when I was twelve twelve, you're right? Yeah.
I watched Jamie Oliver on The Naked Chef when I
was twelve years old, and he's ten years older than me,
so he was twenty two at the time, and I
just fell in love with you, with him and what
he did, and I decided I want to be like
Jamie one day. I want to be the female version
of Jamie.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, And so from then on I started writing my
own recipes in my little notebook.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah. It kind of took off from there.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And it's done very well. I mean, of course the
big boost in twenty and eleven.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yes, Master Chef, which is gosh, fifteen years ago now, yeah,
I know. I feel like that's when we I might
have I think I might have come on your show
you had straight after Master Chef. I mean I was
very fresh, just straight out of the show, and I
would have been very nervous talking to you.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Oh well, I hope I put you at ease. But anyhow,
I was just thinking, I've been doing the show for
twenty years and you're the only person I've spoken to
so often. So you must be the most interesting person
in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Dishing out all the conflidents today.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
You've got a TV show on as well.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, well, the TV show kind of came. I was
filming that end of last year and earlier this year,
and it's out on TV at the moment on Channel
three seven thirty on Wednesdays. And then I suddenly thought,
I need to put a book together with all these
recipes because people are going to come at me asking
for the recipes, so they need somewhere to find them.
So that's how why I kind of put the book together,
(03:44):
and the timing just seemed right at the time. I
haven't put a book out in four years because life's
been that busy with the three kids. I've got three
boys nine, seven and two and.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
They understandably busy.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Then yes, pretty and then you know, a farm. We
went into farming six years ago, so that's kept us
super super busy too and everything else. But it just
felt right. I was like, right, I've got all the
recipes from the TV shows that I've done over the
last few years, and I've got the energy to put
this book together. Let's do it, Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Nadia's Farm kitchen, and of course the farm is part
of the star of the book and of the TV show.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yes, yeah, yeah, And is.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It such a great star. It's so photogenic your place.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Oh, it is like every time, I mean, whenever you
draw the curtains and you look outside, you never tie
those beautiful mountains. They're so majestic, like they're just huge,
and they make you feel so small. And they change.
It's just like a looking at a painting each time,
and they really changed throughout the seasons.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Just from minute to minute.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I mean, I don't know how you get any work
done because I was down there earlier this year and
just staring at those mountains or the other aspects of
the scenery out in central Otago because you're the arrow town,
aren't you up in the Crown Range there, and it's
just you just I just stop and gorp. And so
you haven't got enough punch time for gorping, have you? You should?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I should do more of it. I think we should
all probably.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Do more of that. Put it on your to do list. Trikes.
So you've mentioned six years into farming, and by the way,
on the show, the Farm's a star, You're the star.
The Carlos scrubs up well on this camera too, doesn't Heah.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
He does, doesn't he? I hand on heart. I think
he is much better talent than me. And I keep
saying to him, you're a way better talent than me,
like you should we should be we should reverse roles.
You should be doing what I do. It's better at
it than me.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Because he's got farming genes going back's.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Generation now, so he was kind of and that's that's
just like in New Zealand. It goes back further than
that as well.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And stand, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So he was the only one to break the line
of farmers, which his father was a bit just brought
about when he was much younger. But now he's put
the line back together. He's gone back into it now, all.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Right, and he's in his niche he's obviously been pre
programmed from generations back for that. Well.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
When we first met, so we've met over twenty years ago,
twenty one years ago, and we were kind of together
from that first night that we met, and he always
said to me, I remember on our second date, he
kind of pre warned me that if we were going
to end up being together long term, that i'd have
to be okay, moving on to a farm, because that's
(06:43):
what he planned to do one day.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Okay, so you're fore warned, Yes, okay, you warned him
that you had your program.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
My reply was something along the lines of, well, when
you know, in twenty years or so, I'm going to
write cookbooks and have a cooking show on TV called
Food in the News, Food in the Nude, A little
bit cheeky.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Carlos died in the wall Farmer. You a city girl,
and more than that, spending seven years of your childhood
up in Malaysia transplanted into Central Otago. Was there a
shock or did you just fly into it and think
this is what I'm iportant now?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
There wasn't any shock. Actually, I kind of felt like
that's where I always should have been.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, but I think I like even so, I grew
up in Auckland until I was six years old, and
then we moved to Malaysia, where my father's from, and
lived there until I was almost thirteen, so seven years
over there. So my whole childhood was in the city.
But I feel like I've always been more of a
country rural person at heart. Yeah, I kind of I've
(07:49):
always thought, oh, he'd really like to live in the country.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I wondered whether you get lonely there.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
No, not at all. Actually, surprisingly when so we've got
neighbors that are the closest neighbor's probably a kilometer away,
but you kind of get you become closer to your
neighbors in the country because you rely on each other
for things like, you know, doing sharing drop offs with
(08:16):
school because you're much further away, or the water pipe
bursts and you need someone to help you fix that,
or you need help shooting the rabbits on the farm
to keep the rabbit population down. So we actually do
a lot more with our neighbors than we kind of
did in the city. Yeah, oddly enough.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it. More separation and yet
more interaction. And yeah'm sure a lot of people living
in the city, they might have four or five neighbors
around the offense line and might only know one of them.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, that's right.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, And I suppose also when you do something like
perhaps break your back.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yes, you know, you've done a lot of research otherwise
you're a clairvoyant.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So that that's when people were helping out.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, yeah, I broke my back skiing just over two
years ago when my youngest he was only about five
months five six months old at the time. You know,
I was still respeeding him, and obviously he was very
dependent on me, so it was very very tricky because
I couldn't get up to get him, so I really
had to rely on anyone and everyone who came by,
(09:22):
you know and popped into the house to help me,
you know, Yeah, yeah, that's the neighbors were incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeahs all came.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Around and helped to get him for me and helped
cook meals and all sorts.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
As if having a five month old isn't hard enough
as it is. Yeah, now, that must have been a
pretty low time. Look, I'm you always come across so
full of energy and full of and and you're so
obviously resilient and capable and competent to do all these things,
but surely you must have run your tank dry at times.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Definitely. I think it was about March last year. Actually,
I'd say it was probably my lowest point of ever
reached in my life. And that, you know, I think
everyone's got to go through that at some stage, right,
And it just happened to be the perfect storm. I think,
you know, having kids does take a big toll on
(10:20):
your reserves, and I would say it was probably quite
depleted and never had had much of a chance to
catch up. And then yeah, when it rains at pause,
doesn't it. It often often happens that way. And so
you know, I had the three kids, including the newborn
who you know, was still feeding the farm. We were
right in the thick of it with introducing a lot
(10:42):
of new things to the farm, trying out new processes
and systems and new types of farming and everything, and
taking on quite big risks in that area. And yet
I had my own work going on and own pressures
and stuff. And then Darius at just being very candid,
but Carlos and I we've been together for twenty one years,
(11:03):
and what probably naturally happens in a lot of relationships
is when you've been together for that long, you maybe
start taking each other for granted. Sometimes, you know, after
nineteen years have been together. I think we both agree that,
you know, we started we were taking each other for granted.
But luckily we realized that and we really worked hard
(11:25):
on that to be become self aware of it, and
then to make some steps and take some action to
not take each other for granted, and we're lucky. Yeah,
we made it. We made it through a very rough,
tough patch, but came out the other end like much
stronger than what we were before.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Well that's sounding like a good story. Yeah, But I'm
very intrigued to know what some of these steps and
things were that you did, and so in the second half,
I'd like to just find out a little bit more
about how someone gets up off the floor if they're
in a low patch in there, and perhaps in their
mood and in their relationships, to find out what you did,
what recipes you applied to your Literally I'm talking with
(12:07):
Nadia Limb. This is real life on new Stalk Seed
b B back of you in just a minute. Welcome
back to real life. I'm John Cown speaking of Nadia
Limb and Tammy Neilson stuck ahead in the door to
sing a song for us.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, I love that song. She actually played on our
farm at Rowburne Station a few months ago, I think
it was. Yeah, well maybe it was in some it
might have actually been earlier this year. Yeah. So we've
got a newish events area there and we stacked up
these hay bales and her stage was Haybales Fantasy. It
was amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And was it a concert that.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It was? I think it was a I think it
was a private event. Yeah, but I snuck down to watch.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now before the break, you're talking about how PEPs last
year you got pretty low and PEPs physically emotionally exhausted,
and perhaps things not too brilliant in the relationship side
of things too. And yet you went on to say
how things have now swung around and you're now back
in a good play. I'd like to know how you
(13:11):
got better. First of all, was it a shock to
you that you could be that low, because you must have,
over the years accumulated a lot of a track record
of thinking I can do this, I can conquer anything,
because you have conquered so many things.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Definitely, I think I was, like, I've always kind of
believed that resilience was my middle name, and I remember
when I was a master chief. Actually, Josh Emmett, who
was one of the judges, then he said at the end,
he said, you're so you're really soft on the outside,
but inside you're as tough as iron. You've never seen
anything so tough, and yeah, I've always kind of believed
(13:48):
that I was really, really tough. And it was very humbling,
I have to say, one of life's lessons. And everyone's
got to be humbled at some stage in their life.
But when I found myself on the kitchen floor just
crying and telling myself I couldn't do it, couldn't face everything,
it was very humbling to realize that I wasn't as
tough as what I believed for the believed for the
(14:10):
last thirty eight thirty nine years. Yeah, but a great
lesson to learn. You know, no one's invincible.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Where did the solutions start to come from? Did you
come up with them yourself?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah? I did. My husband was away at the time,
so he was traveling for four months for an international
farming scholarship. They had one, so I left home yea,
with the three kids and the farm and everything else
going on. So that was tough in itself. But really
I looked at it quite logically, I guess you could say,
and that's probably how my brain kind of works with things.
(14:43):
But I looked at it with a step by step
process and I thought, okay, step number one, I have
to work on myself I have to make sure that
I'm that I've got my strength back up. And then
once I've achieved that, then step number two, I'll work,
you know, with Carlos on our relationship and we have
some things to address openly and honestly, and we'll work
(15:04):
through that. And then once that's done, step number three
then I really want to, you know, really work on
being the best mum that I can be.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
These are a section headers of your next book, because
it's going to be so that first section starting to
make yourself a priority? What sort of things did you
start to do because you've got you've got business to run,
farm to run, three kids running around the place. What
did you start to do? What could you do?
Speaker 3 (15:33):
First step was definitely realizing that I've been a bit
of a martyr. Yeah, that was kind of going on.
And you know, I always kind of thought, I can
never rest. I've got to keep going. I'm going to
keep going. I've got to keep going. But that was
a bit silly, really, like everyone deserves a break. I
look back at it and I can kind of unpeel
the layers and I can now see that a lot
(15:54):
of it comes from my upbringing. So my father being
an immigrant from Malaysia, from the Laisia. So he's Chinese.
It's like ethnically Chinese that was born and grew up
in Malaysia. And he came from a very poor family,
like I'm very very poor. You know. He tells us
stories of them having to share one can of beans
(16:17):
between ten of them, so they bought it down into
a soup. And I grew up. My brother and my
sister and I were never allowed to leave a single
grain of rice on our plates because he would find
that offensive because it would remind him of what his
mother and aunties went through in the rice famine back
in China, so where they were starving, so very poor,
(16:38):
and his ticket out of poverty was education. So he
did very well at school. He was a very hard
work and he did really well at school, and that
was how he got out of poverty. And so he
managed to get a bit of a scholarship to come
to New Zealand and study engineering over here. But to
make that all happen, I mean, he had to work
so hard. He was working several jobs while he was
(16:59):
at university to get through. And so that work ethic,
I think has always been drilled and to me from
a very young age, and same as my brother and sister,
and I think there was this belief that you have
to earn your rest, like you, you need to work
and work, and you need to keep going to prove
that you deserve a rest. Really, it does a great
(17:23):
thing to believe it. I mean, maybe a bit of it.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, it does. You work harder, you achieve more, you
work harder. Still, you achieve more, but you work harder
than that, and you start to achieve less and you
work much, and that your crash.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
That's right, exactly, And that's that's what I've learned. It
sounds silly, It's kind of obvious, isn't it. But sometimes
when you know you it's been so ingrained in from
your childhood, it's hard to unpick.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So a revolution going on in your head saying actually
I need this is not selfish.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I need to that's right, And for me to do
the best work and be the best friend and mother
and wife and daughter and sister and all of that,
I need to. Actually I do need to have rest
for myself when I shouldn't feel like that's selfish at all.
Things that helped other things, like practical things I knew
(18:12):
I'd always put off, like I always did a lot
of exercise that was kind of incorporated into my daily life,
so like in the garden and just running around after
the kids and all of that, but never kind of
set aside formal time to do anything in particular. But
I started. That was one of the habits I have changed.
And so instead of kind of going, Okay, I'll get
(18:36):
to a pilates class once I've done done my eight
hours of work, and once I've done all of this
with the kids, once I've cocked dinner, and once I've
done the dishes, and once I've done all my ADMINI emails.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And yes, I've only got to be another thirty seven
hours of stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Whereas I started doing it the other way around, as like,
right exercises a priority, I'm going to do that first
and everything else can wait, and then I'll get to
the other stuff. And I started, you know, maybe watching
a bit of comedy at nighttime instead of thinking I
had to keep going with all of you know, life
admin things and all the work tasks.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, well that sounds like amazing. Congratulations on pulling yourself together,
and you pulled your relationship together with Carlos. Yes, now
I think it was away at that time. Did that
make it easier or harder?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Surprisingly, it made it easier. It was actually a blessing
in disguise that he was away for so long, and
we realized that we hadn't been so we'd been together
for nineteen years at that point and we'd only spent
no more than two weeks apart, which is quite crazy
as well, like to be joined at the hit for
that long.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I guess that would have been when you were locked
in the house master chief.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Oh that sorry, that was the longest. Yeah, other than that,
that was the long snow So that was actually ten
ten eleven weeks, So you're right, that was the longest
time we'd spent apart. But other than that, we'd only
ever spent about two weeks apart. But because he was
away and he was mainly in Brazil at the time actually,
and that I think it's like an eight hour difference.
So there was never a a very good time to call.
(20:09):
He was very busy on this farming scholarship, visiting farms
all around the world, and you know, whenever it was
the right time for him to call was the wrong
time for me. Because I was putting the kids to
bed and doing all of that. So we actually had
to take to writing to each other well emailing. So
writing would have been a lot more romantic, but it's
email in these days and luckily so that I feel
(20:34):
like that actually was one of the keys to saving us,
because written communication is actually really really handy because you
can have time to think about what you're saying. You're
not reacting in the heat of the moment. If we
talked on the phone, we might have we probably would
have exploded at each other and I could you can
(20:55):
sit on it, you know, just think about am I
being am I saying this in a respectful way, and
you have your time to think about it. And so
it was a much better form of commun munication for
us to get everything out there. And yeah, it really worked,
and I'm very proud of of us both because we
(21:16):
worked through stuff and we come out the other side
even stronger than we were before.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
That's fantastic. You're a DIY person and so you've saved
yourself a fortune on counselor's fees by counseling yourself.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Well, I had actually to be I'm always very candid
and honest, Like I had actually signed contacted a therapist
and was ready to go and talk to them, but
then yeah, I was on the wait list and then
found out, you know, and decided, oh, don't actually need this.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Well that's fantastic. The farm itself. It is it experimental
or are you sort of going along principles that other
people have sort of worked out for you?
Speaker 3 (21:53):
I'd say, mixture. We have done a lot of experimental things,
and so we've kind of been I guess you could
say in some ways like pioneers in some areas. For example,
our on farm mobile micro ABATOI, there's only US Rawburn
Station and one other farm called holy Cown, Cambridge that
has a license to have an on farm micro abatua.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So that means you're sort of drive by a shooting
sort of thing. That it's not quite no, not at all.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
No, No, it is quite gory. I'm going to be honest,
but it is. I think, you know, and I mean
this that if you're going to eat meat, I do
believe it is the nicest, best way to dispatch the
animal in a farming system, but it is it's very
rare because the regulations are are huge. It's they're very
hard to get around, but who knows, it might become
(22:43):
more of a common thing around the country, which would
be great.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, Nadia, there's so much I'd like to have talked
to you about. I'm just gonna have to get you
back again to talk to you again for another four years,
hopefully not even that long, because there's so much and
there's so much that you're contributing to New Zealand. And
you're contributing to our to our nutrition, you're contributing to
our entertainment, and the thing that you're doing down there
in Central Otago I think is perhaps changing the way
(23:07):
that people do agriculture in New Zealand. Fantastic talking to you,
wish you all the best. We'll go out on some
of your favorite music. I think we're listening to Coming
Through by the War on Drugs. Okay, I don't know this.
I'm going to listen with interest. Nadia, Thank you so
much for coming in.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Thank you John. Great to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
As always, this is real life on News talk EDB.
Back with you again next week.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
For more from News Talk SEDB. Listen live on air
or online and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio,
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