Pather only started cooking when she was 18 and studying towards a bachelor of commerce degree. She felt that this qualification didn’t leave enough room to be creative, which left her feeling rather frustrated. It was then that she turned to the stove.

Her journey with cooking started by making eggs for herself. She tested out what happened when she added milk or cream and then cooked the lightly whipped batter on high heat and then on low.

She experimented with the styling of her plate by incorporating fresh Rosa tomatoes, blanched asparagus, crispy rashers of streaky bacon, warm English muffins slathered in hot butter or Panini-press-toasted slices of sourdough with dollops of crème fraiche.

It really was all about playing with the food which allowed her to hone in on the visceral intuition about the produce and plating. It was only then that she realised what her grandmother had been talking about when she couldn’t give her an exact measurement for salt in a dish. Those moments with the eggs set off Pather’s understanding of what it meant to cook from the heart and not the recipe book.

She started her own food blog in 2010. “Somehow being able to cook - to create something from nothing - made me feel powerful and in control of some, seemingly important, part of my life. It was then that I began stalking chefs at every possible food show. I hounded editors and wangled my way into food conferences. Believe me, I was a nuisance,” says Pather.

But it all paid off when in 2013 when she won the reality cooking show, MasterChef SA. This title has made some of her dreams come true because these days, she gets to make a living by doing the things that make her heart sing. The final facet of her dream world is still to have her own cooking show.

Gary Petersen Heart 104.9FM MD says, “Our listeners are hungry for on-trend lifestyle features and Pather's background is perfectly suited to enhance our on-air product even more.”