The need to work from a young age meant Beer, who has become one of Australia's best loved cooks, (having tried office work for British Petroleum in Libya, and lift driving in New Zealand) avoided being boxed in by societal expectations.

"I was never told that I couldn't do something. I was never given any constraints, so I never accepted any".

She tells the story by way of explanation. How is it, I ask, that Beer and others of her ilk - Margaret Fulton, Stephanie Alexander, Charmaine Solomon - carved out such extraordinarily successful lives as female leaders and businesswomen despite coming from a generation which routinely told women they were only fit to be teachers, nurses, or secretaries.

"Well, I'm the youngest of them, I'm only 70," she clarifies, with a laugh. "But sometimes, and I'm not telling my grandchildren this, it works to be free of parameters."

In 2010 Beer was named Senior Australian of the Year. As part of that, she agreed to speak at the annual Aged Care conference, "to thousands of CEO's" gathered in Tasmania. Not surprisingly she did her research, and in the process discovered some good things about the industry, and importantly, some terrible things.

"I knew immediately that I wanted to do something so that every aged care home, every resident in aged care has a meal to look forward to every day," she says. With gusto, she took the plan to then Minister for Ageing, Mark Butler and proposed they find all the great exponents of aged care services Australia wide, and work out what they were doing right. "He thought it was a great idea, but they didn't have the money and I didn't have any resources."

It took time for an idea to ferment, but ultimately friend Stephanie Alexander became an unwitting role model, as Beer listened to all Stephanie's stories while she created her Kitchen Garden Foundation from scratch.

"Using some of those things I'd learnt, I decided my way was going to be to develop a Foundation, to just go for it. It's been a year. I was green and naive," she says. "I'm still green and a little less naive…"

The Maggie Beer Foundation, which brings together global and national research and ideas about improving quality of life for people in aged care, launched in April 2014.

"Food is not just sustenance, it's pleasure, and it doesn't matter what age we are, we need pleasure, it feeds the soul as well as the body. That feeling of something to look forward to, something that will delight. It's probably more important as we age than before, because the choices of those in aged care are limited."

Beer says while it takes time to change cultures, the Foundation has just finished its first Masterclass, giving grants to thirty cooks and chefs from aged care facilities across country and city Victoria.

"It was a really intensive three and a half day workshop to understand their problems and impediments, and to celebrate what they already did well, and to share all the good things.

"It was just so exciting. We versed them in all the great things that were possible. Since then, the letters from their bosses, their co-workers, the residents … that have just changed their lives. That's pretty seductive stuff, let me tell you!"

Beer is currently filming Foxtel's Great Australian Bake Off, where she is a judge alongside Sydney chef Matt Moran.

Despite the barrage of reality TV cooking shows, Jess Ho is the only female judge currently on air, for Seven's Restaurant Revolution - as social media and marketing expert alongside three men from the restaurant industry. My Kitchen Rules, Masterchef and The Hotplate are all hosted and judged by men.

I ask Beer what it's like being a woman in the Australian food industry at the moment and she says that 'without doubt' there are as many important women as there are important men, but it remains a male dominated industry.

"There are really strong women who have contributed so much, and there are so many coming through the ranks. It's a very hard road, once a female has a family, it is a very hard industry. But by gosh, women in the kitchen have got such a place and so often it's those passionate women who rise to the top".