..when I grow up

About Me:

As far as I remember I have always been engrossed in food. My dad was a budding cook and my mum a "I want-to-be-a-cool-mum baker", which she never fulfilled unless I nagged her endlessly until she finally did.I wanted her to be awesome with me, to bake and cake.To stir, to mix. It was a hard effort but growing up was fun. Typical Sundays were spent licking bowls and stirring flour, oven-watching and door-opening. Peanut butter cookies were prime and if I was not allowed to press them down with a fork, they just weren't edible.I was having none. I was a fuss-pot. The kind of girl that liked doing things her way and if they didn't work out, which was often the case, I would just kick and scream until they did. Nothing's changed.

It was imminent that I loved food, and food loved me.Growing up with foodie parents aided my love of the stuff, and if we did not have a three course sitting it just wasn't dinner. I learnt that tomatoes are the food of the heart, that pasta the food of the soul and sugar the food of happiness. The older I got, about the age when I could reach the counter, I began playing with utensils and all sorts of clammer-banging electricals. It was fun. It was exciting  It was gourmet, my gourmet. The kitchen became my experiment and it was my happy place, until boarding-school: yuk!

As a teen, and at boarding school I became less interested in food and more so in boys, french and my friends. Food and I developed a hate relationship and I became so engrossed in my social aspects at school that I missed the boat in choosing home economics, I chose French instead. It is not something I regret at all, but I wish I hadn't taken Geography as a silly subject instead.

My love affair for cooking really became prominent in my years in London. I learnt that food was an art, that it is somebody's job to review restaurants and that Michelin was the kind of dining I fitted well to.Food is exciting in London, fashionable just like her people. The more I enveloped myself in Borough market and brick lane the more I wanted to cook, the more it became my passion. Most weekends I found myself ad-hearing to recipe books or tv programes just to get a glimpse of other foodie fanatics and connoisseurs. I started a job at a cookshop in London, to get a real feel of the gourmet deal and took part in hosting cookery classes, something that enhanced my taste-buds and my experience with ingredients, it taught me to test my culinary skills, it taught me a challenge. With wise words and skills from the likes (and favourites) of Angela Hartnett and Ottelenghi, I was bound to be stuptified, and so my homage to cooking began. I networked and met some amazing people and learnt the wonders of flavours and palettes.

My flat in Wimbledon became my vice, I would spend hours baking up treats for people, or just for myself. I called myself Baker-Mella and the more I tried and tested different recipes the more fans I became to gain, my friends would come round "just for tea" and most likely be offered something sugar whilst at it. I catered for a company for a short while too, which was fruitful. I enjoyed  it.

I now blog mostly about my recipes and hope to inspire you through my stories, travels and tastes.

I have summed up my homage to food in a nutshell, but you get my drift!

Keep calm and eat on.

G.Chews