Hello. I’m Katie Pix, I’m 30 years old and I’m proud to say I am a complete food addict.
Brought up with two chefs as parents, I was utterly spoilt for great food throughout my childhood. Whilst my friends were complaining of fish fingers for dinner again, my brother and I were shown the value of fresh, homegrown eats, prepared from scratch. As a rule, Mum and Dad’s food was never over the top or needlessly complex – they had a business to run, after all – but they always used the best ingredients they could afford and treated them with love and skill, the most important ingredients in any dish.
For as long as I can remember, Mum and Dad would bring us into the kitchen and talk us through the different processes that turned raw ingredients into gorgeous food. Having both been to culinary school, classic sauces and bases were high on Mum and Dad’s home curriculum, so the first recipe I ever mastered was a bechamel sauce. My natural tendency towards gluttony and a crippling dependency on cheese meant that I would overload this classic base with indecent volumes of the crumbliest of vintage cheddar before pouring the whole lot over rice for a truly guilty pleasure – I said we ate well, not classily.
My interest in food exploded as I ventured off to University and realised there had to be more to student cooking than Pot Noodles and King Babba’s take out. Now, my parents’ lessons really paid dividends, allowing me to develop my own repertoire of simple, tasty and quick crowd pleasers: homemade pizzas on the hob, a roast dinner scrimping on cost but never on flavour, and my often requested chicken and mushroom pie in just 15 minutes.
After graduation, I somehow landed a job in social media, specialising in pr relations for a number of wonderful British food brands. Then, with a few years of experience under my belt, I was offered the break of a lifetime to tweet, post and Instagram for Mr Jamie Oliver. Jamie’s was the first cookery show I’d ever watched, the first recipe book I’d ever owned and the first person I’d ever aspired to emulate. Naturally, I was utterly thrilled to accept the position and have the opportunity to watch the master at work. Jamie is quite clearly a truly exceptional chef, with a palette and technical ability second to none, as well as an innate understanding of what people like to eat. But what captures the imaginations of his legions of fans and admirers and sets him apart from perhaps anybody on our TV screens is his ability to effortlessly create a real bond with his collaborators, viewers and readers. He also happens to be one of the most generous and encouraging people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. As a result of his determination for his proteges to succeed, a throw away comment about my unfulfilled quest to be the next Nigella started a whirlwind of action, and next thing I knew, I had a YouTube channel, a stage kitchen and a crew prepped for filming. ‘Hellooooo’ Katie Pix.
As a food lover and all-round greedy beggar, I have tried my hand and palette at most cuisines and I always find that, regardless of the provenance of a dish, what grabs and fascinates me is not so much the processes involved in preparing a meal, but rather the experience of food and the emotions every amazing mouthful can inspire. I adore cooking, but I can categorically say I like eating even more. This is the side of cooking that I love most and it’s an approach to food that I want to share with anybody who will listen.
Food is at the heart of everything we do and has an unrivalled power to bring people together. More than anything, food, for me at least, is joy – and sharing that with other people can only be a good thing.