The Rugby Pantry

The Rugby Pantry

Daisy Dagg & Amber Vito

Foodie friends Daisy Dagg and Amber Vito started The Rugby Pantry after bonding over their love of eating on the All Blacks 2012 end-of-year tour. What began as a Facebook page to share recipes with family and friends quickly evolved into a popular site sharing recipes, tips and an insight into what All Blacks eat for health purposes and what treats they like to indulge in.

The pair’s philosophy is that home cooking doesn’t have to be complicated, time-consuming or scary, but meals should have great flavour, use fresh ingredients and be made with plenty of love.

The cookbook contains both healthy measures and guilty pleasures – Daisy and Amber refuse to accept the all-too-common stance that most food is bad for you, instead they believe that food is for enjoying and you can have anything in moderation.

Daisy and Amber’s husbands (All Blacks Israel Dagg and Victor Vito) have very demanding jobs and equally commanding appetites and have personally sampled each of the recipes and given them the thumbs up.

The book contains recipes that are predominantly quick, easy, provide short-cuts and don’t involve ingredients you can’t pronounce. After all, the girls are home cooks, not chefs, who believe that Monday-night dinner can still taste great when prepped and cooked in 30 minutes or less.

Photogra by Tam West.

The Rugby Pantry, $44.99 RRP published by Upstart Press, available from bookshops everywhere.