I’ve done loads of vaguely interesting things…these are some of them.
I have been a security guard, an agricultural worker and a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. I have spent two winters as head chef for Ski Verbier.com and two summers as head chef on beautiful yachts in the Mediterranean. I lived on a pig farm for a year – looking after various bits of business for Helen Browning Organics, which was wonderful – go to their pub, The Royal Oak and eat some organic pig if you happen to be in Wiltshire. For a couple of years I messed about in the wine trade- selling fantastic wine for a great wine company called Laytons – phone Neill and buy a case of something nice.
I used to hold the poisoned chalice of being in charge of all the hospitality at the BBC. It is almost certainly true that the number of quips from Terry Wogan about the quality of BBC food was reduced under my tenure… I set up an events company called The Edge and ran the Top of the Pops bar and once asked Blazing Squad (remember them?) for ID. I organised catering for Comic Relief, Children in Need and did the launch party for Blue Planet (mini fish and chips – geddit?). I have a degree in English Literature from Reading University which is, thus far, pointless. I started off my career organising conferences in Bristol – I used to buy mini scotch eggs and sandwiches from M&S and charge the punters £5 per head for Buffet A. Best business I have ever done. Then I worked for a famous party company in London who were very good but awfully mean.
I have cooked dinner for Bill Clinton, Sebastian Faulks and Gary Lineker and the chap who invented MTV but whose name escapes me – Bob something. I’ve organised parties for the opening of Anne Summers on Oxford Street and in the Natural History Museum, a picnic for 3,000 in Regents Park and a barbecue at Chiswick House for 1000. I have travelled the world, eating and cooking – learning the very specific tricks of the private cooking trade, I have advanced wine qualifications and a second class English Degree, PADI advanced scuba diving and precisely no cooking qualifications. You takes your chances as they say…
Now I have settled near Putney Heath and I work, again as head chef, at a gorgeous and delightfully exclusive tennis club in Notting Hill. I drink a strong coffee every morning on the leafy veranda over-looking the courts and I feel like I am on holiday.