Sunday breakfast with Dave Hughes
Kate Jones 21 June 2008
Weekends bring Dave Hughes a well-earned sleep-in and something even better-mouth-watering crepes. Hughes' wife Holly routinely cooks up a storm in the couple's St Kilda abode, and Hughes starts his mornings with a stack of home-cooked crepes.
‘Holly loves an excuse to cook; she's always trying different recipes,' explains Hughes. ‘She rarely tries the same thing twice. I often tell her how good it is, sometimes before I've eaten it.'
Hughes is lucky enough to have an experimental cook in Holly, who has tried many a variation with her weekend crepes. Last week Holly added hazelnut meal and chocolate chips to pikelet batter, but says the end result was "too rubbery".
When Breakfast Out visited, Hughes was tucking into his favourite-crepes saturated in maple syrup, topped with pecans and bananas. Maple syrup, and lots of it, is Hughes' secret to a delicious crepe dish.
‘I'm a massive maple syrup fan,' he says. ‘Maple syrup has got to be a part of every good crepe experience. And it has to be good maple-I don't like fake maple.'
The sweet-tooth admits to drowning one serving of crepes in up to half a bottle of maple syrup. At around $10 a bottle for the good stuff, it's an expensive habit.
On weekdays Hughes sticks to a healthy breakfast regime. The veteran comedian and one half of Nova's breakfast radio team, is up at 5.10 am each morning. On the way, he snacks on fruit - usually a mandarin - and once there, takes in a bowl of bircher muesli prepared by the show's producer.
After the show, Hughes heads to a local café and gets stuck into some salmon and eggs on toast. As a self-described pescetarian (vegetarian who eats fish), salmon features heavily in his diet.
‘I would eat salmon five times a week at least, often twice in a day,' Hughes says.
Hughes says he was ‘a big meat eater' until three years ago, when he gave up meat for health reasons. So did Holly.
‘My parents had trouble with bowel cancer and I read somewhere that red meat can contribute to that,' he says. ‘I miss eating meat, now that we're talking about it. But not enough to start eating it again.''
Hughes, who hails from Warrnambool on Victoria's west coast, treks back to his hometown during rare breaks in his busy radio and TV schedule. In addition to breakfast radio, Hughes also co-hosts Channel 10's popular Before the Game and has a regular spot on Rove.
Back in Mum and Dad's kitchen, Hughes reverts to his childhood brekkie routine.
‘I'm very regimented with my brekkie there,' he explains. ‘I have a bowl of Vita Brits, or now that Mum's shopping at Aldi, a bowl of Aldi Brits, with sugar and hot milk, and two pieces of toast with home-cooked jam.'
Home-cooked strawberry jam from Mum. Maple syrup-drizzled crepes from Holly. It seems the way to a man's heart is most definitely via his stomach.