Here's to you Daddio

Honoring My Dad: The OG Cooking has always been a really meaningful experience for me. I learned to cook from a young age and since then, it's been a way for me to reconnect with myself, take time to nurture myself and my family/friends (whoever's at the table), and most importantly, give a nod to my Dad. My Dad was not only a great cook, he instilled in me a love for food and the importance of cooking without rules and recipes, just creativity and on a serious budget. Growing up between the UK and the Middle East, I was exposed to a load of different flavours and cuisines. My Dad loved trying out a new dish and experimenting with different ingredients and techniques, he genuinely found joy in the kitchen and that unsurprisingly rubbed off on me. He taught me that cooking is not just about following a recipe, but about listening to your gut, picking the flavours that rumble in your belly and to just keep experimenting, trying and tasting. Oh and that a good cook makes a huge mess, no matter what they're making. My happiest memories with my Dad were when we were in the kitchen, trying to rustle something up from whatever we could find in the cupboards, which quite often wasn't much. We rarely used measurements of any kind and just eyeballed everything, constantly tasting and adjusting, until he'd give that scrunched up face of delight and say 'phwoar, that's it Noo'. When I decided to become vegetarian as a child, it was my Dad who didn't question me or try to change my mind, belittling the values of a 7 year old, instead he brought me into the kitchen and began to teach me how to cook for myself. And how to simply love experimenting with foods and flavours and open up this plant-based world ahead of me. I always think of my Dad when I'm in my kitchen, it will always be a joyful space for me. It's a space I'm now fortunate enough to share with my new-born son and teach him all the great recipes and morals for life that his grandad Richard once taught me. Here's to you Daddio.