Consuming Passions is not currently screened on ABC TV
Ian was born in London some time after the Second World War. Father was a brewer, mother a housewife, and maternal grandmother a Duck (her maiden name), who cooked for a wealthy family of Russian furriers in a large London house. He thinks he got his culinary flair from Mrs Duck via his mum - though didn't learn to make borscht until some years later.
Moved to Belgium at age 9, where he began cooking. Went to an early Montessori School - he thinks it was the second that Maria Montessori founded. He was exiled to England for schooling while parents continued living in Brussels. Concurrently educated and bullied at King's School, Rochester, Kent - Britain's second oldest school. (It seems 'second’ was his thing.) He learnt acting, cunning and survival.
Undistinguished academically, he won a drama award and was captain of fencing and shooting. He also threw the javelin in the athletics team. He eschewed ball games for sports with a point to them - or a bullet. He was expelled from school for partying and, after a spell making false teeth for a Polish refugee's plastics company, he became a journalist. (This is all true, by the way).
Ian worked on magazines and thrived in Fleet Street's wine bar and pub scene, before moving to Australia in 1971, working as a PR consultant then joining the ABC in 1973 as a Publicity Officer. He survived ABC TV's rigorous Producer Training Course and became a producer/director in 1974.
He mostly worked in News/Current Affairs, music and sport. His first production was Fats and Figures - a five-minute food programme! He started Rock Arena and Talking Pictures, and won Penguin Awards for two Leeuwin Estate Concerts (with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and James Galway, and Dionne Warwick.) He was producer of AFI Awards, America's Cup coverage, World Swimming Championships, among other major multi-camera productions.
He started Consuming Passions in 1992, his first on-camera appearance. Ian has now done 10 series - 450 shows - which have screened in Australia and several other countries including the UK, Singapore and Ireland. He has produced 11 recipe collections and two 'serious' books, Cooking with Passion (ABC Books) and Sheer Bottled Bliss - A Margaret River Memoir (HarperCollins), won an Australian Award for Literary Excellence in 2004.
In 1995 Ian won the Presenters' Prize at the Festival de la Telegourmande in France, and the following year won the Festival Grand Prix for best TV food show.
He has been a columnist with The Sunday Age newspaper and has contributed to Australia Today magazine and the West Australian. He is a regular contributor to Delicious magazine. With colleague David Evans, Ian launched the Tasting Australia food and wine festival in Adelaide in 1997. The festival takes place every two years. Ian and David received a Jaguar Award for Excellence in 2001- in association with Australian Gourmet Traveler - for Tasting Australia. His company, Consuming Passions Pty Ltd also works in Los Angeles on Australia Week, a major promotion of Australian food, wine, film, fashion, business and investment, tourism and travel.
Ian lives in Margaret River, Western Australia, where he and his partner Ann produce a highly regarded Chardonnay (Artamus) from grapes that they grow. He plays piano, guitar and blues harmonica in his spare time, draws and writes; loves dining and wine tasting, comedy; mowing the vines, travel and British crime on TV. He believes in Slow Food and in supporting Australian producers in their efforts to create and market the best foods in the Universe.
Ian has won the Prix de la Profession (the Presenter's Award) at the Festival de la TÈlÈ Gourmande in France. In 1996 at the same festival, Consuming Passions was awarded the major prize, the Lucien Barriere Grand Prix.
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