My love for cooking first began one evening in my Oumie's kitchen when I was about five or six years old. It was several hours after my bedtime, and the two of us were still wide awake, whipping up a batch of pancakes for a naughty late night snack. I was in charge of sifting and, dressed as I was in her vintage wedding gown wearing every single piece of jewellery she owned, covered head to foot in a light dusting of flour and laughing fit to burst, I was taking the job incredibly seriously. I was so happy, and somewhere between cracking the eggs and ladling out the batter, I had a moment of clarity (the kind that get fewer and further between when you get older), when I realised I was exactly where I was supposed to be. In that second of pancake fuelled ecstasy, I saw for the very first time the utter perfection of food and its ability to bring people that you love together, to show them you hear them, you see them, and you understand them... and thus began years of eating, laughing, delighting and recipe writing.