My story

When I was eleven, my parents divorced, and my dad found himself in charge of a kitchen he had never really had to run. So we learned together, one Woolworths Taste recipe at a time. Some we got right. Others we ate politely and never spoke of again. In the school holidays I’d take Huisgenoot Wenresepte off the shelf, hand my dad a shopping list with the confidence of someone who had never paid for butter, and bake all day. Baking got its hooks into me then, and it hasn’t let go since.

Years later I found myself on The Taste Master SA, season 6, and then, somewhat to my own surprise, in the top four: the only home cook left beside two chefs and a caterer. I came home with a confidence I hadn’t packed and a nickname to match. I’d been slipping rooibos into almost everything, and when I served a rooibos smoked kingklip on the episode I went home, Zola Nene christened me Mrs Rooibos. I lost the challenge and kept the name, which I consider a fair trade.

By day I work in IT and design, which keeps me logical and structured, makes me a sharper entrepreneur, and a far more organised baker than is strictly necessary. I used to think I’d have to choose between the laptop and the oven. I’ve decided I don’t. The kitchen is still where I go when life gets heavy, and where I worked out that I was always enough. These days Blissful Bites is where I let the flavours I grew up with loose on dishes from everywhere else, each one tested in my kitchen in Pretoria. Make something, tell me how it went, and if it didn’t quite work, tell me that too. That’s how my dad and I learned, and it’s still the best way I know.