When I was about 8 years old I discovered my passion for cooking from the great cook that was my mother. She would stand in her 'All red and white' themed kitchen, (the inspiration for Carmel's Kitchen Logo) and send me down to the green grocers for half a pound of 'firm tomatoes' for our Sunday tea sandwiches. Mum inspired me because she was always busy and I began to help her with the 'Saturday
Dinner'. It was always chipolatas, boiled potatoes, baked beans and tomatoes. For pudding she taught me how to make a jelly and blancmange- that was my job and how I started cooking! Later I was promoted to cakes and mum used to buy cake mixes so I could make a sponge for tea. Her ethos she shared with me was to make best of what you have (and what was seasonally available). At school, for a jam making lesson everyone else had beautiful strawberries and raspberries- I had a marrow from Dad's allotment and some ginger! I loved cookery at school and chose to do a two year City and Guilds catering course at Slough College. These were a couple of the best years of my life. I left college to work in the catering department at Littlewoods stores and then moved to a contract catering company called Batemens, where I worked for 18 months. This taught me the world of small canteens right up to executive dining. At 20, I moved to my lovely Devon and worked at the Hawkshide motel for a year and joined the Blue Waters holiday camp where I ran the fish and chip shop for a couple of years. Here I served breakfast to the holiday makers before they set off and all the arrivals before check in! Working at the camp was a fun and lively place where we would do themed nights: Scottish, Caribbean, French, Spanish, and all the staff would dress up and get involved. My first introduction to community care was when I became a Warden and later a traveling Warden for East Devon. This highlighted the empathy that I have for the older generation and brought out my need to nurture. From here I moved on to work as a Care assistant in a residential home and I was promoted fairly quickly to a management level. I helped run a day centre where one of my many responsibilities was managing the kitchen, food planning and it's staff. My culinary education continued here with great cooks who shared traditional recipes tailored to the clients. In the latter part of my working career, I have been working as a community care worker for social services which involved assessing the needs of clients and putting packages of care in place to ensure their safety at home. Very often I saw that a regular nutritious meal has got them back on their feet again. Carmel's Kitchen was borne out of my working life experiences and my firm belief that EVERYONE needs freshly prepared food daily.
