What’s it all about?

For me, food is pretty much everything. It is what we all do, all over the world and it is who we are. When we eat, we use all our senses.  We see, touch, taste, smell and hear. And good food does all of things in abundance.  In turn, what we eat determines so much about our inner health, well being and even how we look. So if we eat well, we do ourselves a favour and if we eat conscientiously, we do the planet a favour.

Food trade has shaped history and in turn migration and it still does. Food brings people together, families and friends sitting around a table making dumplings, or bread or mince pies. Then enjoying the food we have made still around a table or sharing it as gifts or offerings of support when we take food to those close to us who need some help. Food can teach us about other cultures, which I can’t help thinking is so important right now as cultures mix. And fundamentally, food brings us not just satisfaction and nourishment, it brings us joy.

I eat because I love good food and I cook for the same reason.  It also it relaxes and inspires me. I aim to eat healthily and with the planet and its future in mind. We could do so much for our futures by changing how we shop for food and eat and these recipes bear that in mind.

As for this website, it is really just a love letter to my children, Ben and Maddy.  My son has just turned thirty and my daughter will be thirty next year. The idea for writing down recipes when my son, Ben, was waiting to be born. A bun in the oven.   Maddy soon followed. Both born with an appetite that made, and makes, me smile every day.  I continued to write recipes down and then life just took over. But I still kept cooking. Always. And the two people I most enjoy cooking for are now hungry adults. I am so incredibly proud of them, the way they are and the things they do. And I love it when they ask me how to cook things.   I wasn’t always there to help them and we haven’t had the many happy hours in the kitchen together that I once thought we would have.  Ben and Maddy inspire me every day and most of the recipes were created to inspire them and be able to reply more quickly when they ask me how I cooked something.

I want so much for them to have the same pleasure from food that I have been lucky enough to have in life; from my own Mum and Dad, from friends, and from travelling.  Anyone reading this is someone else’s son or daughter and that makes me happy.

The recipes here will have started their own life in my kitchen and then on instagram. I simply try and remember what I did and then write it down. So if something is amiss, please be patient and more importantly let me know and I will recreate it or re-write it. If you have seen something I cooked on instagram and it is not on here, let me know and I will put it up when I get a minute. If there is something you want me to cook or a food you need to eat more of, please also shout I will see what I can do.

Now go and be inspired and cook.