Philly’s Food World started with the aim of writing about my passion – food. It pains me to see people ordering takeaways and buying ready meals because they ‘can’t’ cook. So I aimed to try and remedy this.
The blog started when I had got in touch with my local paper about writing a food column. After several emails and phone calls to no avail, the editor asked for some sample articles, which I duly sent over. ‘They’re fine’ he said, ‘but I doubt you can get pictures good enough for the paper.’
As it happens, my brother is a photographer and agreed to take my snaps. I cooked six dishes, the cost being met by myself, and we successfully completed the photo shoot. I attached the pictures to the articles and e-mailed them to the editor. No response.
Three months went by and I had given up hope when a friend of mine suggested I start a food blog and include the restaurant reviews I had do as a hobby. Great idea I thought; save time and the money I spent going to waste (other than filling brother’s stomach).
My idea is to encourage peo
ple into the kitchen with recipes that are both delicious and achievable. Yes, they require a little bit of effort but I get a lot of pride from putting my food on a plate and I hope that passes on to my readers who then pass them on to others.
People seem to have a fear of cooking these days, believing it’s ‘too hard’ or ‘I can’t do it’ I’m here to break that down and show anyone can do it and reap the rewards both health wise and financially.
It’s a great feeling hearing of someone trying out your recipe; especially if they enjoy it! I recently auctioned my services off (cooking that is!) in aid of the Prince’s Trust and raised over £150, which was very rewarding!
Britain has such an amazing larder I think it’s important to promote it and use it as much as possible. Why go elsewhere when we have just as good, if not better, produce than anywhere else?
I was in Spain last summer and was in heaven in their huge fish and meat markets – all local produce. Even the smallest pub bought fresh items from them and proudly served them in their establishments. Here we get mass produced frozen products in most of our pubs. I love shellfish and it’s ludicrous we export nearly 90% of it. We should use it to our advantage!
One of the reasons I trained to be a chef was that I often eat out. I’ve been in so many restaurants and paid good money for really average food, which made me quite irate as I love my grubb!
So I thought ‘I can do better than that’ and enrolled at catering college. I had previously studied Journalism before joining the course so thought I’d utilise those skills too; hence I started writing food articles and restaurant reviews.
Doing reviews was never something we learned at college, so I just had to almost wing it, which I liked because I think it kind of gave me 
my own unique style. It’s an easy thing for your average Joe Public to go onto Trip Advisor and slate a place because ‘the portion was too small’ or such like, so I like to think with my training, people will respect my reviews and I enjoy giving feedback.
I hope after reading this, you’ll share my blog and get somebody cooking. I’m sure you’ll get as much reward from it as I do.
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