Nicky Pellegrino's Italian father and English mother met on the Via Veneto in Rome in the 1960s. A holiday romance turned into a marriage and they raised Nicky and her brothers Vincenzo (now an actor) and Eduardo (now a computer genius) in Merseyside where, instead of the mince and chips their friends ate for dinner, they all soared to well over six feet tall on a diet of fabulous Italian food. A career in journalism, working on magazines in London, followed for Nicky until, while on a visit to Auckland, she had a holiday romance with the man she went on to marry. Nicky now lives in the suburb of Pt Chevalier with her husband and dog and combines her job as editor of New Zealand Woman's Weekly with an embryonic career writing books. She helped dying broadcaster Angela D'Audney write her best-selling autobiography Angela: A Wonderful Life. Delicious is her first novel.