Rita

Age: 36 Lives: NSW Signature dish: Italian lamb cutlets

Rita is married with two boys who she cares for five days a week while working two days as a sales assistant. As they and her husband have hearty and particular appetites, she finds herself cooking their requested evening dish – meat – each day. They live in a two bedroom apartment filled with toys and she can’t bear the smell of cooked meat trapped indoors. Hence, her use of the barbecue for a delicious meal that needs to be to a standard… otherwise she has some unhappy children on her hands.

She performs each day for her children while cooking, pretending that she is a TV cook teaching and showing them how it’s done – mind you they participate most of the time as well. It would be a dream come true for Rita to actually host her own television program.

I'm Australia's Best BBQ'er because: “Raising meat loving children with such fine palates, having a husband who only eats if it reminds him of his mother’s cooking, not standing the smell of cooked meat indoors and not wanting to clean extra pots and pans each evening, makes the barbecue my other kitchen! When I mention a barbecue to my father-in-law (a typical Italian who only eats the best) he is at my doorstep with a smile right across his face. In fact, I know it’s good because even my 19 month old who only has two bottom teeth and four top teeth will not let go of my lamb cutlets, or fillet steak or barbecued vegies when they are placed in front of him."