Once a teacher, always a teacher, says Alice Zaslavsky.
The chef, author, columnist, radio presenter and ABC News Breakfast culinary correspondent who found fame on season four of MasterChef Australia is driven by a desire to educate others about cooking.
It's why she swapped the classroom for the television studio in the first place.
Zaslavsky is the host of A Bite To Eat With Alice, a new daily cooking show on ABC where she is joined by guests from all walks of life: from comedians, athletes, musicians and celebrity chefs to public figures, all with interesting stories to tell.
"This seems like a very natural extension of what I've been doing on News Breakfast and through my books and columns," she told Food & Wine.
"I want to demystify cooking. People think that they need to be good cooks in order to enjoy cooking, and I want people to know that when they cook, they get better. It just happens."
She also wants people to "put their money where their mouth is" when it comes to what they choose to cook and eat, and what they choose to feed their families.
"I think we have a responsibility to build a more sustainable system, and what I mean by that is sustainable in the sense of the environment, certainly, but also sustainable in who we support with our dollar when we buy our food - the growers, the producers, the artisans," she said.
"I believe some of the best food in the world comes out of Australia.
"When I travel internationally, touring my books, I am often told by people who have visited Australia how struck they were by this incredible melting pot of cultures and cuisines, and all the fresh ingredients that we have at our disposal."
Zaslavsky was teaching English and humanities when she auditioned for MasterChef Australia. She describes it as "very much an organic decision".
She didn't expect it to be a life-changing one.
"I was a teacher and I wanted to create a food and culture elective for my students, so I did a 'chef at home' course through TAFE here in Victoria for a year, and at the end of it they were doing MasterChef auditions," she explained.
"I knew my students were watching MasterChef and thought that if they saw me on the show, even for just one episode, they would want to do my food and culture elective.
"I was planning to come back and teach and only be on the show for a little bit [laughs] but it's a bit like when you do better on your HSC than you expected ... I came off the show just before finals week and all these doors were opening to me."
It was then a matter of choosing which doors to enter.
"Everything I have done since 2012 has been about staying true to my values as a teacher, and that guided me," Zaslavsky said.
She's now written four cookbooks: Alice's Food A-Z to help children get curious about food; In Praise of Veg to help households fall in love with vegetables; Better Cooking to help build cooking confidence; and Salad for Days which helps cooks to "make friends" with salad.
And she did end up creating an educational resource for teachers and students incorporating food and cooking. It's called Phenomenom, and it's a free digital toolkit now used by thousands of parents and teachers.
"Sometimes people think 'Oh teachers are just going to lecture me', but the best teachers are the ones who learn with you ... and I think that's part of this new show as well," Zaslavsky said.
"We all make mistakes, and some of the guests that come on are not cooks - some of them certainly are, household names and culinary icons like Stephanie Alexander, Poh Ling Yeow and Kylie Kwong - but Anthony Callea is not a cook, he doesn't even open his oven!
"He entertains by ordering in. So how do I move Anthony just a little bit down the continuum of cooking? By giving him the confidence to say he loves to cook and to have a bit of a dabble here and there."
So, making an effort is the key? That and not worrying about being judged?
"Yes, exactly. I've entertained some household names at my home for dinner, and people say to me 'Aren't you intimidated to have this chef at your house?' and I say 'We are eaters! We cook because we love to eat'," she said.
"They'll be happy with a grilled cheese sandwich if someone else will cook it for them."
