Connie Aldao Worker plans to learn as much as she can about Chinese cuisine and to bring those skills back to New Zealand, writes Tracie Barrett.

When New Zealand Ambassador to China Carl Worker hosts events at the New Zealand residence, he always thanks his wife and the embassy cooks prior to inviting his guests to dine. It is not mere politeness or appreciation shown for his wife's organizational skills. As a professional chef and former restaurateur in her native Argentina, Connie Aldao Worker is likely to have spent two to three days before each event working in the kitchen alongside the cooks.

Aldao Worker first became involved in the hospitality trade in Argentina, where, while studying business, she began working for celebrated Argentinean chef Francis Mallmann.

"I started working on the office side, not the kitchen," she says. "I used to organize his cooking shows, TV programs, helped write two of his cooking books - he did lots of traveling representing Argentina overseas, so I had the chance of doing that with him, too."

She says that, while working for Mallmann, she started helping in the kitchen, "just for fun".

"So I started getting involved in the kitchen and then, after two or three years, I was spending more time in the kitchen than in the offices."

In 1998, Aldao Worker was responsible for setting up the 1884 Francis Mallmann Bodegas Escorihuela restaurant in Mendoza, which was ranked seventh of the top 50 restaurants in the world in 2002 by the United Kingdom's Restaurant magazine.

"I was general manager. I set up the restaurant from scratch in charge of the accounts, training the staff, choosing the wines, the menu, seating the guests, giving cooking classes, designing the menu, training the kitchen and I worked also as a chef."

It was at the restaurant she first met her future husband, when the diplomat's Spanish teacher took him there to dine. Their romance didn't blossom until a year later, and they married in 2003. The next three years were spent in Argentina, before moving to New Zealand for three years.

Aldao Worker, who was then a famous chef in her own right in Argentina, wanted to learn New Zealand's food culture so she took a part-time job in a cafe cooking local favorites, another part-time position at Government House preparing more upmarket fare and also opened a small catering company.

"New Zealand food is all about using good-quality ingredients," she says. "The cuisine is very modern and they love to adapt things from elsewhere."

Her husband, who previously worked as a diplomat in China, returned here as ambassador in 2009. The ambassador's wife says she and the ambassador, who spent five years of his childhood in Argentina, both speak English, Spanish and Chinese, as do their sons, Oliver, 9, and Nicholas, 6. "Our home is a mix," Aldao Worker says.

Her kitchen and the embassy table are a similar mix, as she works with local cooks and ingredients to showcase foods from New Zealand, adapted to Chinese ingredients and flavored with her Latin American heritage.

In addition to hosting and catering embassy events, Aldao Worker also promotes New Zealand and Argentine food in conjunction with local restaurants, such as Sureno in Sanlitun's The Opposite House and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Beijing Clubhouse.

Aldao Worker says the residence has an average of 10 ministerial visits each year, with a record 20 in 2010, and hosts more than 2,000 guests each year.

"It's like running a small restaurant all by myself. It's a way for me to keep my hands on my profession. Cooking is a profession that, wherever you go, you will be able to practice and learn many things."

She has traveled to several parts of China and says she would like to see more of the country.

"It's a great place to be. The people are lovely and in a way related with Argentina. The way the Chinese people are and the way people are from Latin America is quite similar. It's a family-centered society."

One of the high points of the diplomatic calendar, Aldao Worker says, is a charity bazaar organized each year by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

"Lots of embassies participate. We have participated for the past four years and that is a very good way of contributing to put something into Chinese society. We ask New Zealand companies to donate products and we sell them there and everything goes towards a project they choose."

Aldao Worker plans to learn as much as she can about Chinese cuisine while here and to use those lessons when the family returns home.

"When we go back to New Zealand what I would like to do is to have a New Zealand restaurant that is very friendly to Chinese.

"It won't be Chinese food, but it will be New Zealand food adapted to Chinese ways of eating. New Zealand food but with a twist so Chinese will find it a nice place to go."

Contact the writer at sundayed@chinadaily.com.cn.

Connie Aldao Worker, the wife of the New Zealand ambassador to China, says the embassy residence hosts more than 2,000 guests each year. Provided to China Daily

(China Daily 02/23/2014 page5)