Food influencer Amanda Maiorano – Made by Mandy – on creating tasty traditions
Tradition meets innovation at tonight’s dinner party with recipe developer Amanda Maiorano, who holds dear her family’s culture, while forging her own path ahead.
Every night over the past week, Amanda Maiorano and her mum Grace have been in their Tranmere kitchen, kneading, rolling and shaping fresh pasta.
The preparations have been leading up to a dinner Amanda is hosting tonight, showcasing her love for bringing recipes to life, as well as the ties to her Italian heritage.
All that pasta, lovingly handmade by the pair, chills in the freezer, waiting for its moment once tonight’s main course nears.
Right now, Amanda, Grace and Amanda’s dad Grazio are relaxed as they ensure drinks are chilled and ice is at the ready for when their guests arrive.
The drinks on arrival have been curated perfectly for this warm early evening with the nearby reflections from the pool dancing on the ceiling.
There’s the bottled Aperol spritz, along with a limoncello spritz, made using South Australian limoncello label, Limon, with lemons sourced from the Adelaide Hills.
Grazio Maiorano whipping up some refreshing limoncello spritzes for the guests, with all the trimmings, including lemon-filled ice for that extra special detail.
Limon was launched a little more than a year ago at Sellicks Beach and can be found behind the bars at Star of Greece, Lune, Mitolo, Down the Rabbit Hole and Penfolds.
In the dining area, candles flicker atop a table set for the night, dressed with a blue gingham tablecloth and florals from Tony’s Wholesale Flowers.
Amanda and Grace toyed with the idea of having a florist bring the arrangements together, but the pair only recently went along to a floral workshop in the Hills and decided to put their newfound skills into practice, designing elegant, yet rustic, bouquets for the table.
Amanda has honed her styling skills in her role as a recipe developer, showcased through her Instagram page, Made by Mandy.
Amanda started the Made by Mandy page six years ago while studying nutrition and dietetics. After graduating from Flinders University, things became more serious and her interest evolved into a passion for recipe development and styling.
“I started posting these recipes, not thinking it’d eventuate to anything,” she says.
Canapes included focaccia with whipped ricotta and anchovies, and oysters with an apple mignonette.
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Amanda and her mum Grace have been working away all week making fresh pasta, including orecchiette, and freezing it ready for tonight.
Cooking and photography have always been passions for Amanda, so it only made sense to bring them together, along with her love for styling.
What was then simply a hobby really stepped up while she was holidaying with her sister, Sarah, and grandparents in Italy, visiting family.
“I had all these beautiful pictures of food, so I started to post them more regularly and my sister came up with the name,” she says. “The more consistently I posted, I was able to engage with an audience and some brands.
“I had the intention of getting a full-time job as a clinical dietitian after uni, but looking back now, I’m grateful that didn’t come to fruition.”
While the market was challenging over the Covid pandemic, people were at home and cooking more than ever, so that helped Amanda’s audience grow and it now sits at more than 8000 followers.
While Amanda works two-and-a-half days a week as a dietitian – mostly on telehealth consults – it’s content-making and recipe development that have become a huge focus.
Amanda’s friends Holly Wood, Mia DeCesare and Renee van der Hoek.
A lot of Amanda’s content in the beginning was plant-based, focused on whole foods and using unrefined ingredients, but as time has gone on, she simply approaches it with a mindset of a love for food.
“A lot of my followers don’t even know I’m a dietitian because I don’t really push that ‘healthy’ spin on my recipes.
“I also work a lot with people with eating disorders, so when I talk to clients about food, it’s often about stepping away from the ‘healthy’ food and more into what food looks like as a part of social connection and the unifying aspect to it, rather than ‘clean eating’.”
The determining factor for the recipes Amanda creates mostly comes down to one factor – does she love the food?
It’s no surprise then that much of the food she creates is Italian – either traditional, or more modern spins on her grandparents’ recipes.
Both sides of Amanda’s family are Italian and both her mum and dad’s parents migrated to Australia between the ages of 15 and 20.
The homemade gnochetti sardi is topped with traditional sauce made by Amanda’s Nonna Rosa. The beautiful table setting was complete with placemats and plates from La Casa Homewares, candles and candlesticks from Twopairs Homewares and amber-toned glasses from Fazeek.
Amanda plates the linguine vongole.
“Life has always been a classic Italian household. My parents grew up with all of their cousins living on the same street and I’ve only ever lived next door to my nonna and nonno.”
The point is proven when Grazio opens a fence in the back yard to his parents’ home to replenish the ice.
“The relationship I have with all of my family is very special to me,” Amanda says. “And when I hear other people talk about seeing their grandparents once a month, it’s so strange to me – I go next door to have coffee with my nonna every morning.”
Those relationships with her grandparents left the most profound mark on Amanda when it came to her passion for cooking.
“I’ve been lucky enough to go to Italy with them and see relatives and the older I get, the more immersed I’ve been able to be in the Italian culture. It’s funny because when I grew up, something as simple as taking prosciutto and mortadella paninis to school seemed so foreign.
“I have this whole new appreciation for the culture now, especially as my grandparents get older, because I know they’re not going to be around forever and I want to soak up as much as I can and food is the ideal way of doing that.”
Confit lemon tomatoes have been paired with Paris Creek quark.
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The burrata with grilled peaches and prosciutto is a dish Amanda made in Italy to great success.
Amanda’s nonna, Anna – Grace’s mother – is famed for her simple, yet delicious, meatballs in tomato sauce, as well as stuffed calamari.
“She’s so great – I gave her one of my Gourmet Traveller magazines and she perfected this zucchini-filled ravioli, so she’s open to trying new recipes as well.”
Nonna Rosa’s signature dishes include her lasagne, which is a stand-out, as well as her braciola (braised stuffed beef) and tiramisu.
Tonight’s menu is a lovely amalgamation of tradition and innovation. To start, there’s focaccia with whipped ricotta and anchovies – a dish Amanda made recently while catering for an event.
First to arrive is Amanda’s friend Renee van der Hoek and her partner Ed Mignone.
Renee and Amanda met when they were working as a dietitian and podiatrist respectively at a medical centre, and Renee has now started her own medical marketing company, while working at a Norwood-based creative agency.
Seafood was a star, with the pipis and oysters.
Amanda is in her element hosting as they cheers a wonderful evening.
Renee is the one at the ready when Amanda needs help taking photos.
Also here tonight is Holly Wood, who reached out to Amanda via Instagram and asked for advice about food photography.
“I told her just to come over and have a look, and now we talk on Instagram and catch up every now and then,” Amanda says.
Amanda’s kindness isn’t atypical of the industry of creators here in South Australia. “The industry doesn’t feel as big as it is in Sydney or Melbourne, so everyone is trying to give each other a leg up.
“It’s really nice and when I was starting off in this space, I really appreciated people giving me tips.”
Completing the guest list tonight is Mia DeCesare, who Amanda went to university with, and her partner, Minh Ly.
As everyone mingles, Amanda chats away – she’s relaxed because so much of the menu has already been prepped.
Amanda and Grace fill three large platters with pasta. The homemade orecchiette with green pea sauce is a recipe Amanda likes to whip out when she wants something a little different from the traditional red sauce.
Amanda and Renee enjoying a moment in the kitchen together as dinner comes together.
Tonight, the sauce has been paired with orecchiette, which she learned to make in a cooking class in Puglia.
There’s also vongole – a dish Grace makes for special occasions and one of her father’s favourite meals.
But, of course, the traditional can’t be ignored; nonna’s red sauce, made during January’s annual sauce day, is paired with gnocchetti sardi.
The rocket, burrata, grilled peaches and prosciutto salad is a dish Amanda made while travelling. “I made this when we were in Italy in the middle of last year because it had been four weeks and I hadn’t cooked for so long, so I really wanted to make something,” she says. “It was summer so they had all this beautiful fresh stone fruit and nice fresh cheese and everyone loved it.”
The quark and confit tomato dish is based on an Ottolenghi recipe and to finish, it’s saffron poached pears with creme anglaise and chocolate salami.
Amanda’s whole family has been incredibly supportive of her career – even if they don’t always understand it.
“It’s odd to me that I can make a job out of this, let alone for my grandparents. My nonno was asking me if I sell the food I make. I tried explaining that it’s the recipes and kind of the photos that I sell. I don’t think he really understood, but they’re all so proud of me.”
This article first appeared in the January 2024 issue of SALIFE magazine.
