Simple food is my main aim when I create a recipe. That can mean a lot of things. It can mean using just a few ingredients or it can just mean keeping the flavours in a dish distinct and defined. A lot of the time I like to just walk into the kitchen, look in the fridge and create something from what I have. Improvisation is not only the key to becoming a better chef, it makes cooking fun.
I’ve loved cooking since I was a kid. Both of my parents were good cooks and they had a large supply of herbs and spices on-hand at all times. This led to a lot of experimentation — to varying degrees of success. I would put turmeric and fenugreek into my instant noodles, marinade meat in red wine vinegar, without a care for balancing flavours…that was something that took a while to learn.
When I left high school I wasn’t sure what I should be doing with myself. I took a job washing dishes in a cafe, without any notion that it would lead to anything interesting. After a while there, I started to work with the food, doing a few prep jobs for the chefs here and there and then eventually started helping with cooking during service. This turned into an apprenticeship and I eventually qualified as a chef at the end of 2013.
After qualifying, I needed a change of mental scenery. The hospitality industry is a wild animal and it can be exhausting to be caged up with it for long periods of time. I decided to go back to school.
Writing had always been another of my hobbies as a child. My love for it grew alongside the cooking. I’d write little short stories on our old Intel 486, staring at the chunky CRT for hours while I clacked away on the keyboard. When I finished my apprenticeship, it made sense to tend to this passion, that had been neglected for a while during my apprenticeship.
I went to university to study a Bachelors in Professional and Creative Writing, working a few shifts a week to keep afloat while I studied.
I graduated with distinction in early 2018 and have been working to combine my love of writing with my love of food since then.
This website is the culmination of a lot of hard work and is my attempt to bring some of the food I love to other people. I think any creative pursuit is about connecting with other people and food is one of the best ways to do that.
If you would like to contact me for whatever reason, go to this page.