For over thirty years Maud Basham was a New Zealand food writer and media personality who, under the name of ‘Aunt Daisy’, exerted an immense and unparalleled influence over domestic behaviour, household spending and pantry stocks. So prominent was she, that she was named a ‘Goodwill’ ambassador for New Zealand and made several visits to the USA during and after WWII where she was described as ‘The Dynamo from Down Under’. Best known in popular memory as a radio personality, Aunt Daisy wrote regular magazine columns, also fifteen cookery books and books of handy hints, which combined nonfiction and fictional components, and included tips for recycling products as well as readings, quotations and sayings which she found inspiring. By focusing on these innovative texts, this paper will look at how the voice, personality and attitudes of the ‘first lady of New Zealand radio’ are embodied in nonfiction prose to create texts that are still popular, in print, and on sale in the twenty-first century.