Seven years ago, I dropped out of my degree course at The University of Manchester in Computing and started working in a takeaway. I had a very negative outlook on my future until I came across a book called MEAT by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall of River Cottage fame. It was this book that really inspired me to learn more about food.

After reading the book it began to made sense to me why my mother had decided to bring me and my brothers and sister up on a vegetarian diet. I went to explore, and where better than the best vegetarian restaurant in the world… Cafe Paradiso in Cork, Ireland.

On my return to Wales from this adventure I was equipped with a much deeper understanding of cooking with vegetables and yes…. I was once again a vegetarian.

My goal when coming back to Wales was to work towards opening a Vegetarian Restaurant but, living where I do in a small market town called Carmarthen, the idea just amused my friends and worried my family, so I moved to Cardiff and that’s where it all began! EthicalChef was born.

I got my first catering gig within weeks of setting up and from that I was offered a place in Wales’s most prominent hotspot, Riverside Market. The EthicalChef business has been up and running now for close to two years and I’m looking towards new horizons…. Television.

With campaigning idols such as Hugh Fearnley and Jamie Oliver as my example, when the opportunity from a Cardiff based film company Gingenious came my way, I jumped at the chance to continue with their good work. Within 3 weeks Ben and his crew were in my kitchen hatching some plans, and we came up with this…

I would present several simple recipes to post on YouTube to see what level of interest we could gather.

I’d never presented before, and Ben from Gingenious had never filmed cooking before but on our second meeting we decided to give it a go. It’s amazing how much work goes into making a few short videos: four of us were working flat out to get the videos ready for release on YouTube. Now we’re all working hard to get them seen by as many people as possible.

The grand scheme of things is try to achieve a total of 1 million hits and in the meantime raise some money to film three twenty minute episodes around growing, farming and cooking in and around our area where we have an abundance of fantastic ingredients and producers. Who knows where it will take us…….?