Earlier this year, Chrissie Swan set herself a personal challenge: to start clearing her plate and saying no to things that take up too much time. But when a special new project came her way in the form of her first cookbook, she broke her own rules to embrace it with abandon. Read on for what came next …
For a while now, Chrissie Swan’s 14-year-old son, Kit, has been nagging her. A growing interest in cooking has led her middle child to repeatedly beg his mum to write down the recipes for the dishes he loves so that he can recreate them too.
“I’d just say, ‘Kit, you can watch me one day with a notepad,’ because they’ve got a name for it – an ‘intuitive cook’ – meaning you just make it up as you go along,” she laughs of her approach to creating the meals that, like many mums, she cooks every evening for her family.
And then someone came to Kit’s rescue.
A tap on the shoulder
Book publisher Pan Macmillan had also noticed Chrissie’s knack for cooking. Like many others, they’d seen her stint on Celebrity MasterChef Australia in 2021. They’d also noticed that whenever she talked about cooking or posted recipe hacks on her social media, it would be eagerly picked up by her huge community of followers.
She’d been approached before, she tells The Weekly now, to write a cookbook. But she’d always shut it down, thinking of the huge amount of work it would take to get the recipes “out of my mad head and onto a piece of paper for a normal person to cook”.
But with Kit, she jokes, “ramping up the harassment”, the timing was perfect when Pan Macmillan came knocking. And so The Shortcut Queen was born – a collection of 80 recipes beloved by the Swan family and their friends over generations, with tips on how to cut out any extra fuss while not losing any delicious flavour in the process.
What is Chrissie Swan doing now?
The irony of adding yet another project to her brimming schedule – which includes her Nova radio show, a podcast, various TV projects including hosting Seven’s rebooted Healthy, Wealthy & Wise, and raising her three kids – Leo, 17, Kit, and Peg, 12 – isn’t lost on her.
When Chrissie joined The Weekly as a columnist in January this year (we know, another project she said yes to despite the towering workload), one of the first pieces she penned was about why she was going to declutter her schedule. It was time, she’d decided, to put that energy into the important things in life; to prioritise time at home with her family while still enjoying a flourishing career. And, of course, to take some necessary time out for herself.
“I’m in my ‘say no’ era,” she says now of her concerted effort to take on less. “But it takes some time to take effect. And I find it really hard to say no to things that are fun! Couple that with my inability to know how long things take – and my God, it was so much work – and of course I said yes to this book.”
Chrissie’s love of cooking can be traced back to her maternal grandmother, Rita O’Malley. Meals weren’t the stuff of Chrissie’s dreams when she was growing up in Melbourne. Her mother, Patti Swan, was a “classic ’80s mum – there was a lot of cottage cheese and dry fry. There was always a diet, so everything tasted pretty bland.” But when the family went to stay with Rita in Brisbane every Christmas holidays, a culinary paradise awaited.
Inspired by Gran
“She had a chest freezer filled with pumpkin scones and everything delicious you could imagine was in there,” Chrissie recalls, her eyes aglow at the memory. “She had the hardest-working oven in Wooloowin.
“My absolute favourite were the pumpkin scones. I found out later that she used to do the scone baking at the big racecourse in Brisbane – she’d make thousands of them. They had a light nutmeg vibe, and she used to serve them with butter and golden syrup. She called them ‘Golden Syrup Cockie’s Joy’ and to this day I don’t know why.”
It wasn’t just Rita’s cooking that inspired Chrissie as a young girl. By the age of 45, Rita was already a widow. She had no interest in remarrying. Instead, she led what, at the time, was an unconventionally independent life without worrying about what anybody else thought of it.
“She didn’t drive; she got buses everywhere. She did whatever she wanted – went dancing, watched the cricket, stayed at home, went to bed early, grew her own zucchini. She just did whatever she wanted.
Rita also “lived alone and loved it,” Chrissie says of the gran she adored. “She was a really great, independent, funny woman. She taught me that you really don’t have to listen to what society tells you. She really was a trailblazer.
“I was maybe 32 when she died, so unfortunately she didn’t meet any of my kids. But she’s very present. My daughter, Peg, has this funny little giggle that’s exactly like Gran’s. I feel like the kids have met her, although they never did. It’s a shame – she would have lost her mind.”
Where did the recipes come from in Chrissie Swan’s cookbook?
Needless to say, Rita’s pumpkin scones are present in The Shortcut Queen, along with other recipes that have their origins in treasured moments. Some are longstanding inventions Chrissie has tweaked and finessed, others were gifted by friends. One even comes from Julie Bishop, who, over a decade ago, taught Chrissie the bones of what has become Julie’s Chicken & Cream.
Given the recent controversy over a stolen caramel slice recipe which made headlines around the world, was she worried the former politician would come after her, we ask?
At this thought, Chrissie erupts into her signature throaty chuckle.
“I slid into her DMs and said, ‘Julie, you may not remember this, but you cooked a dish with me on [now-defunct panel show] The Circle, and it’s so delicious that I still make it and call it ‘Julie’s Chicken’. Can I put it in my book?’
“And she said, ‘My God, it’s the only time I’ve ever cooked! I’d be honoured if you did.’ I got permission from everybody. So no, there won’t be an Instagram scandal.”
A family meeting
First to be asked for permission, of course, were her children. Despite Kit having badgered her into writing down these recipes, all three were less than excited that the entire world would have access to their mum’s treasured meals.
“Hulk Chicken [a dish made especially for Leo during her eldest’s early fascination with the superhero] is their favourite,” she explains. “I made it up and nobody else has it, and they got very protective. They were like, ‘You have to keep that one just for us.’
“And I said, ‘I understand what you mean, but imagine if there are kids out there who won’t eat chicken or coriander or whatever – and think of what this meal unlocks for them. That is a good deed.’”
And so she received the blessing of her tribe. Peg is thrilled that Peg’s Banana Bread has come to life in the book, while Kit has come to terms with sharing the ingredients for his Goes On Everything Kit’s Bagel Seasoning. You may not see pictures of the trio in the book (years ago, she made the decision to keep her family private), but the love they all share is evident throughout its pages.
Part of her decision to start taking on less lengthy work commitments was to spend more time at home. “Doing nothing time,” she says, with her children.
“I’ve loved every age of course with the kids, but I really love this age,” she enthuses of motherhood today. “I just want to spend time with them where you just sit on the couch, loitering. Just being, not doing anything, waiting for them to tell me their little golden nuggets and make me laugh. Hearing a story about what happened at school. They’re such great company.”
Why is Chrissie Swan called The Shortcut Queen?
The book is filled with shortcuts for busy women just like Chrissie wanting to make life a little easier when it comes to serving up dinner every night. Her son Leo was dubbed The Shortcut King when he was just two years old because “if there’s a quicker way to get something done, he’ll find it,” Chrissie says. “And I think he got that from me – so now I’m The Shortcut Queen. Honestly, my whole life is a shortcut.”
She uses that in practical ways – like always carrying a backpack during her morning walks so she can fit in a few errands at the same time or bulk buying the essentials. But one hard-learnt lesson – and again, the reason she has entered her “say no era” – was that one thing she will no longer take shortcuts on is her emotional wellbeing.
“One of the reasons I pulled back on work a bit is that things were being bypassed, and anything to do with me went first,” she says. “I haven’t read a book in at least a year or seen a movie. I haven’t caught up with 10 very close friends. That was the first thing to go.
“Then I found I was rushing conversations with the kids because I had to go and finish off something with work. I don’t think you should take a shortcut with your own mental health or on easy, relaxed time with your kids. You can’t rush connection with yourself or others.”
The most important person at the dinner table
In the introduction to The Shortcut Queen, Chrissie writes that she “made this book primarily to remind you that the most important person at the dinner table isn’t the pickiest eater. It’s you.”
It’s a message that all women need to hear – herself included, she adds. “Because when you’re running the show, as most women do, it’s much easier to just keep hacking away at what makes you happy,” she says now. “We’re so rushed, we have so many people to look after, and we’ve only got a certain amount of energy and care and mental real estate as well as ability and time. So it’s just easier to start cutting off your own bits and bobs. Eventually you’ve cut off every bit and you’re just a torso that works. And that has to be undone.”
It’s taken her most of the year since penning that fateful column for The Weekly about intending to take on less, but the fruits of her labour are starting to shine through.
Last month, she shares, she sat down and watched a Netflix series – something she hasn’t done for years. And now she’s going into the kitchen not only because it’s time for dinner to hit the table.
“I found myself making a vanilla slice and I went, okay, I’m cooking for pleasure now,” she laughs of a recent event. “That’s something!”
In the coming year, Chrissie’s hoping to spend more time in the garden. She also recently bought a pottery wheel care of Facebook Marketplace. “So maybe I’m in my arts and craft hippie era,” she muses.
When was Chrissie Swan on Big Brother?
Certainly, she’s a long way from the woman who first came onto our TV screens via Big Brother in 2003. Recently, YouTube began streaming entire seasons of the seminal reality show. Chrissie is one of the many who watched it here for the very first time as a result. She’d seen the attention-grabbing headline scenes which had been replayed in news segments over the years. But what she hadn’t seen was “just me at that time in my life”.
“I was like, God, I’m so different now,” she says of watching her younger, pre-child self.
“[Back then] I was really quiet. I was very low-key and giving zero f**ks. I was watching her and going, ‘I really don’t remember her’.”
The change, she says, came upon her leaving the show and making the switch from copywriting to radio – and gaining a public profile.
“I think I realised that I could affect someone’s day in a positive way by just being myself,” she says. “I’ve always loved a laugh and telling a story. Previously that was just for my friends. But now I get to do that on such a grand scale. If you’re the reason that someone lets out a sigh of relief and says, ‘Oh my God, me too’, that is what keeps me going.”’
The Shortcut Queen by Chrissie Swan (Plum) is available now.
This article originally appeared in the December 2025 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Subscribe so you never miss an issue.
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