about me

I am a chef, but also a mother and a food writer. Feels odd to write those words in that sequence, they are not in order of importance, more, historically accurate, each one determining the next, here’s why.

I cook because I love cooking and we all need to eat.  I write because all the best chefs, scratch that, my favourite people, all share a deep and greedy love of food writing and great recipes.

I knew from a very early age that I wanted to write, but it wasn’t until cookery became an obsession in my late teens that I began to hone what it was that I wanted to write about. I began collecting cookery books and applying for work in restaurant kitchens. My first job aged 14 years old was in a pub kitchen in the depths of the countryside. I would cycle there and back and was paid 3.50 an hour. Later on at University and studying for a degree in Journalism, I worked in various restaurants to pay for my accommodation (also a prodigious and expensive social life). Stints followed cooking in Sydney and China in my 20s, and later in London. I was consumed by cheffing, I loved wearing chef whites and enjoyed the swagger and energy of cooking in service late into the night.

I met my husband Matt cooking side by side in a restaurant in London. More cooking, more travel, for many months and in lots of different countries, then sometime later, babies! This is where being a mum throws an enormous curveball at being a chef, there was no going back, restaurant kitchens were no longer for me.

I had my hands full, it was time to start writing. I wrote a small column about Feeding Kids for The Guardian Newspaper and pregnant with my 3rd daughter Dorothy, I sent the proposal for my 1st cookery book to my publisher. I wrote The 5 O’ Clock Apron whilst on maternity leave, often whilst breastfeeding and typing one handed in a cafe with my other two daughters, Grace and Ivy at nursery and primary school. Astonishing really.

12 years on from writing that 1st cookery book, I have written many more cookbooks since. I also make cookery videos, putting the real in reels over on instagram. Practicing what I preach, because, full circle, I am a mum, a food writer and a chef, and very much in that order.