Welcome to my website which is all about plant food. Follow my everyday cooking and eating, as I experiment, devise recipes, photograph food and generally cook up a storm.
Vegan cooking was not on my radar until 4 years ago when my husband, aka the Beloved, decided to go vegan for health reasons. I heard myself offer to join the journey as the official vegan cook to the house. With the offer accepted I was off and running. What a great opportunity to have a new food adventure, doing something I’ve loved all my life - cooking.
My Granny started off my cooking journey when I was 7. We made sponge cakes together starting a life time food journey. In my teens I also persuaded the fam to let me take over cooking at home one summer so I could get in some culinary practise. Inedibly hot curries and flat as a pancake meringues were some of the things my fam had to endure. But boy I learnt a lot. And there have been a few notable milestones in my food life since then.
The strangest was a request to cook a hospitality lunch for a group of visiting Japanese business men who wanted to eat vichyssoise, grouse and apple pie, none of which I was familiar with. The regular caterer couldn’t do the gig so, aged 17 with family encouragement and a deep dive into the cookery books, I accepted the challenge. I so remember the feeling of elation that I’d pulled off something that in the first place felt beyond my capabilities.
The next challenge was when I was 21 and still at university. My Dad, who ran a school, rang. Could I go home urgently and cook for the last weeks of term at his boarding school as the cook had gone sick? What did I know about cooking for 100 - breakfast, lunch, high tea and staff dinner. Dad said there’s a cook book with recipes for a 100 which was all I’d need..
So started a six week marathon which with the help of the kitchen staff somehow got completed. By the end the boys would come to the kitchen window and ask what was for lunch as I served up some less than familiar dishes like goulash. When I look back it’s strange I haven’t immersed myself in food before. I went on to do a full-on, full-time Cordon Bleu course in London but nobody mentioned and I didn’t consider, food or cooking as a career.
Instead I went into TV, which I loved, where I produced amongst other things, the first ever UK food series shot on the road. It was called The Spice of Life and we roamed the globe soaking up history and above all cooking, all shot on location, in peoples homes, in restaurants, on the road wherever it could be found from China to Mexico and everywhere in between.
I also spent a year teaching in India at 18 so I had a happy exposure to North Indian, specifically Punjabi cooking, and it’s highways and byways. What ever stage my career was at, I have always continued to cook.
Chance is an important thing. Soon after starting my vegan cooking gig, I met Nicki (@nicki_cooks) who herself had recently started cooking full on vegan. We used to compare notes and this led to a plan to write a cookery book which we duly did.
Then came lockdown and back to doing our own thing. I began an Instagram journey as a lockdown project under the name @thevegqueenarises and, as I write, am well into regular posting. For the first time cooking has become pretty much a full time obsession.
Next came this website as I wanted to offer really accessible plant based recipes to any one who wants to use them. This website is all about sharing what I’ve learnt not least from the Beloved, my husband, who produces many of our cakes and puddings.
I have lots of people to thank for my life long food education, but above all I salute my father who always supported me in what seemed like the most unattainable of endeavours. I not only found out about food, I also grew in confidence and learnt to take in my stride the challenges life throws up.
With love
