5 minutes with Chris

Surprising ambition

I have this fantasy that I’ll do a blog one day called Chicken That’s

Changed My Life, so that other people can enjoy the joys of chicken in Florence, chicken in Paris, in places around the world I’ve found that make the best roast chicken.

Favourite comfort food

Homemade risotto with roast chicken.

Favourite exercise

Reformer Pilates… and tree planting!

Pinch-yourself career highlight

Doing a story on the Versaces for

Witness [Seven Network). We’d been in Milan with Donatella and Santo Versace and had Bellinis with Naomi Campbell, who was headlining for Donatella. As part of the story, we went to the Versace villa on Lake

Como [northern Italy], and we were on the lake on this cracking day. I remember phoning my mum and dad, and I said, ‘I’m in Lake Como, opposite the Versace villa, and I’m from South Wentworthville [in Sydney’s west] – what am I doing here?!’ Mum and Dad didn’t know who the Versaces were, and had no idea what a villa on Lake Como meant. I remember that moment really vividly.

The book you’d recommend to a friend

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini – but with a box of Kleenex. It just breaks your heart. It’s about Afghanistan and the persecution of human beings. I remember lying on the beach reading it and sobbing. A book that can move you to that level of emotions – it’s amazing.

What makes you happy?

Being at the farm. Breaking every fingernail. Covered in dirt, digging holes for trees. And alone. There is something about it. I love the splendid isolation, I really do.