Natasha MacAller

Tash started ballet lessons at age 6 and turned professional at 13. During her 30 years as a professional ballerina she performed with New York’s prestigious Joffrey Ballet and the Boston Ballet finishing her whirlwind ballet career in the Broadway and Los Angeles productions of The Phantom of The Opera.

Knowing that she could not dance forever, Tash used the time during her seasonal layoffs poring over cookbooks and making food for birthday parties and showers and soon set up her own catering business. For eight years she owned and operated Dancing Chef Catering, serving mainly TV, theatre, film and the food industry crowd. She catered for events in all kinds of venues, from sailboats to skyscrapers.
Always a high goal setter, she completed her intensive 18-month cookery course in 1996 at The Colorado Culinary Institute and graduated number one in her class. Success led to success. That same year the petite blonde created an ahi tuna appetizer as an apprentice for “USA Team California” in the Culinary Olympics in Berlin and took out the gold medal.
Today she challenges herself constantly, to create a new cooking, cocktail or dessert sensation be it sweet or savoury. Tash divides her year in New Zealand, Los Angeles and London to continue restaurant consulting, writing and teaching. She teaches her elegant comfort style of starters and desserts in the states and abroad, including venues such as Haagen-Dazs International, Divertimenti and Pru Leith’s in London, plus New Zealand’s Culinary Institute NZ and brainstorming with Peter Gordon’s chefs at The Sugar Club in Auckland. Her “Art of Plated Desserts” and “First and Last” cooking classes are always a hit.
Fresh out of culinary school, Natasha was asked to help assist and co-ordinate the chefs and kitchens during the annual 5-star international food and wine event, rated the top F&W event in the world: “Cuisines of the Sun” on Hawaii’s Big Island, working side by side with some of the culinary legends of the day. Natasha honed her skills at Charlie Trotter’s with Michelle Gayer, Sherry Yard at Spago Hollywood and at Campanile in Los Angeles with Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton.
Natasha’s latest book Spice Health Heroes: unlock the power of spice for health, flavour and well-being released in the UK and USA on October 20, 2016 by London publisher, Jacqui Small. By Christmas 2017 it released in a further 6 countries and by early 2018 a total of 9 countries. Inspired by the spice tastes of her travels and sparked by an idea offered to her by publisher Jacqui, Natasha explores the culinary, nutritional and medicinal uses of more than 30 spices found in one’s kitchen cupboard, from the everyday to the more exotic. She takes each of her spice heroes, groups them into six chapters; from immune and cleansing, to energy and warming, to restorative and calming and details the flair of flavour and the wealth of medicinal benefits each spice may contain, supported by quotes from an expert team of 8 international medical doctors. Practical advice on the storage, preparation and uses of all the featured spices is also given with full-page breathtaking photographs of each spice and every dish by Manja Wachsmuth.