I was doing a media campaign for a kitchen company and I was chosen for the project as my kitchen has told many stories. This is a room that I have reclaimed in my home, it is now a room that reflects my personality whereas once it was just the place where I stored food. As I’ve said before on my blog, my kitchen used to be quite intimidating to me. I never knew how to cook and was 4 stones heavier. But a few I decided to take matters into my own hands and learn to cook, and this helped my weight loss and brought with it a new attitude.

Four years on and my kitchen confidence has grown, so much so that I started a new money making sideline in cooking when I became a Pampered Chef Consultant! I enjoyed doing that for almost 28 months, working at live cooking show parties in the homes of my hosts and learning loads of new recipes, but I decided to stop doing that recently to concentrate on my blogging and video work.

If you’d have told me four that I’d be paid to cook, I would never have believed you. But by making my kitchen a happy place to be, and stamping my personality on it by way of installing a motorised disco ball and blinging it up a bit, I increased my kitchen confidence and accessed many opportunities by being open to them and embracing my feelings about the kitchen. The first step to conquering a fear is acknowledging it, and by being ready to admit that I was lacking in the kitchen arena, I was able to start to build upon my meagre knowledge to a place where I now feel that I can ‘hold my own’ in a domestic kitchen environment.

You will always find me in the kitchen at parties, because these days the best parties are always in my kitchen!