About me

I have been a food and cooking enthusiast for as long as I can remember.

I’ve had the privilege of working for and meeting some incredible and inspiring people in the food industry. For the last few years I have been working for sourdough guru Vanessa Kimbell, author and founder of The Sourdough School. I am also working for Hodmedods, British pulse and grain pioneers. However, my cooking has also been influenced by many wonderful friends and family members over the years, and from travelling and teaching myself.

Believe it or not, I was a picky eater as a child. Although I was happy to try new things, I wasn’t a big fruit and vegetable eater. That all changed when I went to work on a farm in Spain aged 19. Each day I worked in the vegetable garden, watching the plants grow, connecting with the earth. We harvest our food from the garden and shared communal meals with the other workers. Meals were always piles of green leaves, bowls of different colourful salads, grilled fish, and plates of beautiful tomatoes. None of which I would have eaten back in England! But out of a combination of politeness and sheer hunger at the end of a hard day’s work, I dug in.

I learned that vegetables didn’t have to be boring, boiled and tasteless. They could be rich, complex and vibrant. They could nourish my body and mind. My time in Spain also taught me the joy of growing, cooking and eating, and of sharing food, wine and stories long into the night. Working alongside generous people to grow the food that nourished us was a privilege. Spain taught me food was to be enjoyed, shared, and celebrated – and that’s a lesson I hope to instil in you!

There in Spain a seed was planted. For years after I squirreled away in my kitchen, with my nose in a cookbook, learning, experimenting and exploring the world of food. I was living in Brighton for many years where the vibrate food culture helped and inspired me. The variety of options for vegetarian and vegan food, the availability of fresh local produce, and an interest an sustainably sourced food helped shape the kind of cooking I wanted to do at home.

Then after a few years of working in the charity sector, my hobby of making sourdough bread led me to a job working for author and sourdough guru, Vanessa Kimbell. The Sourdough School opened my eyes to an exciting world of fermentation, gut health and nutrition. I have been lucky enough to gain a wealth of knowledge, not only from their research into the nutrition and digestibility of bread, but also in how to communicate this information in a passionate and effective way. I’ve also had the privilege of being part of the incredible baking community at The Sourdough Club, helping students with their bread and in return being inspired myself.

Having grown up in the West Country, I’d always wanted to return, so at the start of 2021 my husband and I moved to Crediton, Devon. Where we now live with our three chickens and an unruly veg patch.

Tim Spector (famed epidemiologist and science writer) tells us we should be eating 30 plants a week, to nourish our gut! This might seem like a lot, but I promise you it’s not – we can all achieve this.

The aim of my cooking is always to go back to basics and know exactly what’s going in my body, by trying to make as much of what I eat as I can from single whole ingredients. I make our my bread, pickles, chutneys, butter, ricotta, yoghurt, vinegar, jam… Although that’s not to say I don’t buy the occasional veggie sausage or jar of peanut butter, I do.

We all have a complex relationship with food. We might see cooking as a chore, or think of vegetables to be endured, or calories as points against our worth. Here at Living Slow Kitchen I hope to show you a balanced meal can be thrown together in 10 minutes if needed, fats aren’t to be feared, and cooking can be not only enjoyed, but can also be a way of creatively expressing yourself!