Favourite food memory from your childhood

In the summer eating outside in my parents beautiful garden, my dad would do lamb chops on the bbq with some chicken or sausages from the local butcher and then roast aubergines, peppers and courgettes, dousing them in olive oil, salt and pepper and then new potatoes with tonnes of butter and salt with fresh mint and chives from the garden. Always had a big salad on the table with my mums vinaigrette, which I still ask her to make me bottle of. Sitting to together in the sunshine, squashing the potatoes into the oil and juices from the meat and vegetables, heaven.

What is your advice to someone who it new to cooking and is looking to put more love into the ritual of preparing food at home?

Think of the food you love to eat, and start simple. It’s amazing the flavour you can create with just a few ingredients. Don’t rush it, put some music on, take your time and enjoy the ritual of it. If you are following a recipe, taste it as you are going along and adjust it to your taste as everybody’s palette is different, I’m always adding extra lemon to a dish because to me it needs it, maybe some herbs I think would go with it. Just trust your instincts and try and enjoy it!

Tell us about your favourite cooking rituals at home… what's your favour thing about having friends and family around for dinner?

I love to pick up ingredients from difference places I like, a good green grocer for tomatoes, an Italian deli for cheese and good bread from somewhere like the Dusty Knuckle. I get excited about what im going to put together and picking herbs from my garden to finish a dish. While my husband puts my son to bed, I turn on some music and cook. It relaxes me and brings me back to myself and where I feel like I belong, cooking. Everywhere I go, I  collect beautiful kitchenware, my kitchen is bursting. I find making a salad in a big bowl I’ve bought back from Italy and plating fresh tomatoes with salt and oil and some burrata in it make it taste all the more delicious to me. The way I show my love for people is to cook for them, I always make too much work for myself and I’m running around until the last minute, but creating a beautiful table full of flowers and candles in the garden, with bowls and serving plates full of food (usually too much!) and my friends or family talking, laughing and eating just brings me so much joy. The whole thing from choosing what im going to cook, to the end of the night when im exhausted but seeing my food making people happy, fills my glass right up.

Tell us about the most memorable meal someone important in your life has cooked for you

My mum is the reason I love to cook, her recipes, the effortless way she makes every meal feel special. From the food, to the way she sets the table with flowers picked from the garden, music playing while she cooks. I’ll never forget the time she cooked an Ottolenghi recipe of spiced lamb and pine nut meatballs in a cumin, crème fraiche, lemony sauce topped with parsley and pomegranate seeds, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it and it really opened up a new channel of food for me that inspired me when I started to cook. Sweet and savoury, fruit with meat, subtle spicing, it was such a pivotal moment for me.

Taste that most makes you think of home.

Toast with cold salted butter with strawberry jam with coffee

You have friends coming over for an impromptu dinner, what do you cook?

A pasta dish, always.  Something simple but full of flavour, spaghetti with braised courgettes, cooked until they start to caramelise with lots of butter garlic and lemon, always topped with dried chilli flakes and fried sourdough bread crumbs tossed with olive oil and parsley. Tomatoes with salt and olive oil on the side.

What do you cook when you don’t have many ingredients in the house?

Noodles with a cold sesame, ponzu, tahini, and lime dressing. I’ll put cucumber and coriander  through them, topped with crispy chilli oil. I have so many condiments and sauces, there is always something I can throw together.

Your proudest career moment to date.

The list of amazing clients I've worked with over my baking career and recently moving food styling along side it

Best place for a tasty dinner in your local area.

Panda Dim Sum

Favourite song to cook to.

Anything by Andrew Bird

Best summer drink.

Margarita always

Favourite summer lunch.

Anything with good tomatoes. Recently I’ve been having whipped goats cheese with lemon and thyme, on toast with garlic that has been roasted until it is jammy, and fresh sliced tomatoes with salt and olive oil.

The ingredient you are most looking forward to incorporating into your cooking this season.

Greens - courgettes, asparagus, peas. Making a big salad and pasta dishes with them