TV chef's courage 'IT'S BEEN A LONG ROAD'

From a health crisis to caring for the community, Mike's done it all

- Catherine Milford

It's a beautiful spring day when the Weekly sits down with Michael Van de Elzen at his Good From Scratch cooking school on his six-hectare farm in Muriwai, West Auckland. The conversation is accompanied by cows mooing and the melodious chatter of birdsong. Mike points out the twin lambs in the adjoining paddock that were born an hour ago. Seven-year-old German short-haired pointer Hector is also keen to be involved, happily trotting between Mike's house and the neighbouring school to ensure he's not being forgotten.

It's an idyllic setting, and one that Mike and his wife Bee actually did build from scratch and a project that inspired the name of both the school and his latest book, Good From Scratch.

But unlike the book's recipes, which are simple and delicious, Mike's life has been far from easy lately. Cyclone Gabrielle last February devastated huge swathes of Muriwai, taking with it houses, cars, businesses and lives.

"The cyclone was shocking," says Mike, 50. "It was pretty scary. We had a lot of trees uprooted and the house shook, but we had no idea the hills were coming down just a short distance away."

When police shut the area, Mike got cooking. "We started taking in food and cooking it. The local Fresh Choice gave us loads, as did Woop - they sent us meals for six weeks for people to collect. Bee distributed food to the locals, volunteers, police, firefighters - anyone who needed it and I just cooked. A lot."