Silvia Colloca: Actor, singer, writer, cook and mum

Trying to pin the Newport resident down for an interview is almost a military operation. She's busy promoting her new movie, her Foxtel series and her SBS cooking show.

She's also putting the final touches on cookbook number six. And, if that's not busy enough, she and Roxburgh have three children - Raffi, 15, Miro, 11 and Luna, 5.

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When we do manage to meet Colloca for this interview, there's a chill in the air as the northern beaches edges closer to winter, so we head indoors to the newly renovated Manly Pavilion.

The fire inside is roaring and we sit on a plush lounge, coffee in hand, to chat about her latest projects, her delightfully warm place picks for a wintry meal in the Beaches, and her favourite winter-time recipes.

Colloca's love of food started when she was young, and in Milan, Italy, helping her Nonna cook. So many of her "food memories" are tied to these humble days.

She kept cooking, and when she moved to Australia with Roxburgh in 2009, she started a food blog. It quickly caught the attention of foodies: not only does she now hobnob with some of the country's most well-known celebrity chefs - Matt Moran, Colin Fassnidge and Manu Feildel for starters - her third series of Cook Like an Italian is airing on SBS.

"I don't take it for granted that we got season three, it's just a dream come true," Colloca said. "There's never a guarantee. You can never tell, no matter how successful."

The show airs across the world - "they love it in Canada", she says.

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In the series, and also her sixth cookbook which is due for release in August, she lifts the pot lid on timeless Italian food rituals.

"We really tried to expand a bit more on that very thing that makes Italian cooking so special, which is the family food ritual," she said.

"We've really tried to shift the focus on more on those beautiful moments, and beautiful culture that is Italian home cooking. It's not just about food, it's the way we express love and friendship."

Colloca also shares the tricks that Italian home cooks often don't reveal.

"They say that Italian Nonnas will take their secrets to the grave, it wasn't my experience with my Nonna," she said.

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A simple tip she shared with us during the interview, was don't throw away Parmesan or Pecorino cheese rinds.

"Keep it in the fridge and throw it in the sauce if you're making marinara type sauce, not with seafood obviously, but a red Neapolitan type sauce. Or if you're making any vegetable or chicken soup like a minestrone," she said.

"Put your rind in there, because as it cooks slowly all the little bits of cheese that are still attached to the rind they just melt into the sauce and it's the best type of seasoning."

Colloca's latest showing on the silver screen is a starring role Little Tornadoes.

The film distills the many upheavals of 1970s Australia - from immigration and post-war resettlement, to urbanisation, anti-Vietnam War protests and the women's liberation movement - into a narrative about one man's struggle to adapt.

Colloca plays the integral role of Maria, who is a new Italian immigrant and narrator for the film.

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She immediately wanted to be involved in the film, which helps tell the story of what it was like for many Italians who emigrated to Australia after World War II.

"It was really the idea of imagining myself in the shoes of an Italian immigrant, who has had a different experience to mine," she said.

"My experience was easy and I came into Australia when being Italian was cool and still is.

"Maria, my character in the movie, in the 70s she and her family are bullied and are marginalised, and they're wogs in the most horrible way that word can mean.

"Times have changed, to some extent, in the sense that Greeks and Italians don't cop it, but there are so many other immigrants who do."

Later this month, on June 21, Colloca's other new project, The Twelve, will premier on Foxtel.

In it, 12 citizens are called for jury duty on a high-profile murder trial in which a woman stands accused of killing her sister's child.

The 10-episode gripping courtroom drama is led by actors Sam Neill, Kate Mulvaney and Marta Dusseldorp.

"There were days where I was on set at 4.45am for The Twelve and then I'd finish at 1pm and then travel on location for an hour to go to shoot Cook Like an Italian. Those are not good days, let's be honest," Colloca said.

It takes some planning to run a house as busy as Colloca and Roxburgh's, where filming, television and movie commitments combine with school runs and homework.

"At the end of the day sometimes Richard and I just do a headcount and go 'OK we did it. It wasn't great, but we did it, we're all here, we're all good'," she said.

"Some weeks are just stupid busy and you ask yourself why do you do it. I do it because I have to pay the bills and I love it. "Everybody juggles, sometimes we do it well, sometimes we do it badly, but we do it."

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The couple both love cooking, but time in the kitchen together isn't something that happens too often.

"We don't cook together much, we've got three kids," she said.

"We've no family around us, we've got no village, so we have to divide and conquer - one is cooking, one is doing homework, one is doing swimming lessons, one is doing something else. We're still in the trenches, but we will get there."

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