An Introduction

“ I can’t think straight” is probably my most often uttered exclamation at home. I still can't manage to zone out when I am surrounded by little people even though my biggest little person is now nine… Consequently, chaos is never far away in our household and although I long for peace and calm and a place in which to create in silence, I recognise that, for now, out of choice(!), I am rarely alone and am always busy.

There is, however, one place that, somehow, miraculously, I feel in control and no matter how many tiny hands are helping, or how much noise and clamour there is I can rise above and calmly go about my business. This place is my kitchen and it truly feels like a magical thing. Because of this, I have spent more and more time there over the years- going to the kitchen to bake my Nanna’s Lemon Drizzle cake makes everything seem alright and has prevented many a meltdown…

I don’t really know the source of this wonder but think it is maybe because so many of my childhood memories revolve around food. I recently found a journal that I kept between the ages of eight and ten and all I seemed to write about was what I ate, including a very detailed account of how many Shredded Wheat that I could eat in a sitting. The room that I remember from each house that meant something to me as a child is the kitchen. Standing at the table with my maternal Grandmother mixing cake batter with her pristine hand held mixer that she kept in it’s original box with the cord wrapped, in a very particular way, around it; peeling vegetables with my Mum for soup while the bread was rising in the airing cupboard, peering into the boxes of oranges and Seabrook crisps that she would buy for us to help ourselves to during school holidays; tasting my first homemade mayonnaise at the home of the Wilkins, our favourite family friends; Aunty Esther’s whipped cream filled brandy snap fingers; Dad’s Yorkshire puddings that got even better when we moved to Yorkshire(“It is the air…”). I thought that I wanted to be an artist but, even though I tried, paint never held the same appeal as food and my studio never seemed the sanctuary of my many kitchens. Eventually you have to recognise where it is that you feel in your element.

Although I still consider myself as a home baker, I have had the opportunity for the past two years to work at a wonderful artisan bakery working alongside a fantastically talented and dedicated team of bakers. Some of what I’ve learned both from them and from others I’d like to share.


“But our waking life, and our growing years, were for the most part spent in the kitchen, and until we married, or ran away, it was the common room we shared.”
Laurie Lee

Ps. The magic doesn’t always work- the morning I resolved to start this blog I hurled a plate of pancakes at the wall, the first time I have thrown anything that I can remember. And, as I write this, G, in all his three year old eagerness is working on a mixture that involves, Sushi rice, plain flour, green grapes, red lentils and egg whites, yes just the whites, don’t ask where the yolks are. At least I had some quiet…