Food that will nourish my family, that’s good for the planet, too. Dishes inspired by a life of travels and food writing that I’m excited to eat, and to share - but that’s realistic to produce, too, day after day, in a time and wallet-stretched life.
So I decided to build a system to plan and manage our cooking week - that really works. It’s a project that’s still in development but it’s starting to take shape. Partly planned, and partly spontaneous, the core recipes are built around seven brilliant dishes - methods really - that I’m calling the Magnificent Seven. These dishes endlessly reinvent themselves with just a change of ingredients to meet the moment: whether that’s for a crowd of people, a new season’s produce, or just a cosy night in.
Hang on a minute - in just seven dishes? Well, wait and see. I’ve been a cookery writer for over fifteen years, and a traveller my whole life. My memories are marked out in meals - the stuffed, spiced parathas washed down by heady chai in a pre-dawn Jaipur market; the braised octopus of a lazy, sun-drenched Corfu lunch.
These days, life’s a bit more prosaic: a country life with - like the rest of us - too much to do and an opinionated family to cook for, too. Travels need to come to me - and they do, in the kitchen. The main collection will go live this autumn, in the meantime, please explore the Test Kitchen and sign up for email updates to hear more.
I have been a cookery writer and teacher for over fifteen years, writing features, recipes and columns for numerous national publications including the Times, Red and Conde Nast Traveller where I was the food columnist for 8 years. I am the author of two cookbooks, How to Feed Your Friends with Relish and Cooking for Real Life, both published by Bloomsbury and the co-author with Nicole Pisani of Feed Your Family, published by Pavilion in March ‘22. I am also a Patron of Chefs in Schools, the charity which seeks to improve the health of children through better eating and food education at school, having worked closely with the founders to establish it since 2018.
I live in Somerset where I look after a bounteous vegetable plot along with a well-fed husband and two children. We used to have hens but no-one else would clean them out so now we have a shy cat and a loving, slobbery dog instead - which is not so good for the egg production.