tools, tips, travel
to help us all eat well, cook better, live more
It´s a journey
Food and cooking are a fundamental part of life. So this blog is for everyone.
It´s not about learning how to become a professional chef (i.e. boss) of a restaurant kitchen, It´s about helping everyone take control of these important daily activities – eating and cooking, and living! So that you can also be the boss of your kitchen, and your life.
Cooking and life are both tough, but really rewarding journeys, and as we have travelled well down the road of life now, we’ve found that what we learn in one, we apply to the other. The right tools, tips, and experiences have helped us along the way.
As ex-hospitality professionals and high-end service providers, we know how it works from the engine room to the happy customer. We’re a front-of-house / back-of-house team in every way. As a married couple, living and working together for over 30 years, fromcooktochef also describes us – sometimes one is the chef (boss) and the other the daily worker and supporter… and we change around often!
Now we’re free to cook, eat, and live more.
We didn´t take a student gap year in our 20s, but we often thought it would be more fun to do later on anyway when we had a wiser head on our shoulders. So here we are, and we´ve gone further.
We´ve simplified life to the max.
We have left professional careers and businesses behind. We’ve sold up the hotel & restaurant, closed the portrait business our cars, the studio, and our home – and pretty much everything that was in it.
We left the U.K. with just a suitcase each – half for clothes, half for kitchen and well-being bits ‘n pieces. Hand luggage for shoes, admin, and computers. So, to keep the paperwork down, this blog is where we make record of everything what we learn, and need to use on our journey, including the best tools and tips and inspirations that help us live our best life.
Our own virtual reference guide
Unbiassed, independent reviews
Silly questions celebrated
Nitty gritty detail
Paperless
Simple
We still need to make enough money to sustain a simple life, so we are working as digital nomads. We can now live in any place (trying to stay above 20℃ all year) and online – as long as there is wifi!
Where are you on your journey ?
Where are you now… are you one of these 4 types of cook or chef ?
1. Are you a COOK that needs more experience or confidence ?
That was me (Aoibheann). I like to cook every day from scratch… but I like to play and experiment. That means I make some fabulous discovers, but things can also go astray. I’m getting much more confident now, but can also lose it again when it comes to a ‘performance’. Cooking deadlines scare me, and if I feel like I´m being watched or judged it’s all downhill from there. Maybe it’s self-sabotage! So I look for simple tools and tips, to help give me confidence. They make my kitchen life calmer.
So this blog will help you understand food and cooking, and get a repertoire going.
2. Are you a Busy busy person that Can cook, but just don´t have time to !
We’ve been there a lot during our professional career life, and when busy parenting. I get it, you’ve run out of time, and are done with going round in circles looking for real advice online. You just want to see the information … easily… right NOW! Let’s save you some time so you can get that loving cooking feeling back.
This blog is also for you if you desperately need to simplify a busy life.
3. You´re a keen home COOK. it´s a hobby. You might even go as far as saying you´re a DOMESTIC CHEF !
You’ll be more like Paul then ! Find out about the little tools, the professional style appliances, and the tips that we get, from the experts and trained chefs… they make a big difference.
This blog is for you if you want to know, or share, the tricks of the trade.
4. COOKS and CHEFS, you´re qualified… or still in training
We know how full and difficult life is for you. You spend your life working your way to the top, then maybe have your own restaurant… and that’s even tougher ! We do love tool makers like Bamix and Bron, that straddle both professional and prosumer markets. We need your input too on this blog, and we love to spread the word about your work through your inspiring dishes, and tips. So feel free to get in touch, and share your own journey.
This blog is here for you to stay connected.
We can help you
We love to experience great food, and have time to enjoy it. We want the same for you.
There’s a lot you can do at home with good information, some tips and techniques, and great equipment. Cooking better starts with the right ingredients, and equipment, and knowledge.
Chefs do a lot more than just cooking too! Chef means boss, so they can be in charge of everything starting with planning, buying and prepping, and even ending with the staffing and finances. We can help you be a better boss of your own kitchen.
So we hope you´re hungry for for relevant, honest information to help you understand food and cooking more. With our added experience, let us spend the time doing the research for you, so you can have more time to use both your brain, and maybe your Braun in the kitchen !
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What we do for you
we learn it – we use it – we live it – we share it
Unbiassed… real people to people, not business to people… no hidden agenda.
We are not professional chefs, just passionate cooks. But we have so much cooking experience with chefs either being taught to cook by the best, or working together with consultant chefs to develop dishes, or being the boss of them as hotel and restaurant owners.
On top of our own experience, we continue to do the research, cooking every day. We eat out a lot too, to sample, and support the industry. We have so much to share ! There´ll be a few of our own musings dotted along the way too.
You’ll also find our own favourites, from fun to professional, on our tools we like page. ( They also make great gifts. )
Kitchen tools
We will show you the best kitchen tools. They might be cheap and that´s all you need. Or, they might be more chef like and long lasting. We’ll keep it simple and only cover the kitchen and cooking tools we think you need to cook better, and throw in a few nice to haves we wouldn’t mind on our own wish list too !
Our reviews will cover everything from basic and budget, to purist and professional to help you all on your own journey.
We will cut through all that chaotic, biased, or incorrect information we see online, and review things that we believe in, or that we love to use – with both obsession and passion. And, oh, we definitely obsess over detail. We can help you make that kitchen work better for you?
The 5 main areas we want to cover are:
* the essentials (knives, pans etc),
* blending & mixing ( starting with hand blenders ),
* coffee machines and drink making,
* smart cooking ( starting with sous vide ),
* outdoor cooking (BBQ, pizza ovens ).
Check out our latest in-depth review here.
You’ll also find our own favourites, from fun to professional, on our tools we like page. ( They also make great gifts. )
Cooking tips
You don’t have to have every tool or gadget out there. We will show you little tips and tricks you can use instead. We´ll share wee hacks, chef techniques, scientific background and tricks. Little time savers, and ways to make time or your food live more too.
The recipes we share are usually simple. We have old favourites, but continually make new, healthy, or cultural discovers on our travels. Once we start learning about an ingredient, or a dish we like, it often starts a journey. So you get to follow that too.
There are so many cooks and chefs out there already blogging great recipes and meal plans and nutritional information. You’ll find them mentioned in our posts.
Food travel ( our new section )
The travel section will allow us to share all the knowledge we have in the travel and hospitality sector, as well as share the delights we find travelling in this new adventure. We can see through the marketing and sales talk. In some ways, we know too much from behind the scenes ! So we´ll take you to the people, and places that really care, about you.
We´ll be covering great places to stay or eat at, cooking courses and local food tours. We´ll also show you some of our own recipes and experiences from each country we know.
Everyone is pretty much locked down with the Covid-19 pandemic right now, so we hope to have this ready for when you can travel again in 2022. Join our email subscribers and be the first to find out what were doing.
Where are we on our journey ?
We didn´t take a student gap year in our 20s, but we often thought it would be more fun to do later on anyway, when we had a wiser head on our shoulders. So here we are, and we´ve gone further. We have left the professional careers and businesses behind. We’ve sold up the hotel & restaurant, our cars, the portrait studio and our home – and pretty much everything that was in it. We´ve simplified life to the max. and can now live, in any place, and online – as long as there is wifi !
Food and learning are still a big part of our daily life. We trawl through all the information online – continually – and there´s too much ! So much of it is incorrect, just copied, biassed or old. So, we spend our days exploring and researching, so that you don´t have to. We´ll share the good stuff with you in different ways – here on the reviews and blog, with our email subscribers, and our social media followers.
The tools and tips from our food and cooking journey as we travel, so that we can all cook better, and most importantly… have fun with it and live more.
what we get out of it
1. It’s the satisfaction of helping others.
2. We use this as our way to keep focussed on our daily mantra so we can live a balanced life.
3. Maintaining this blog allows us to learn and practice digital marketing every day. so we learned about affiliate marketing too, so we use it to try to make the site pay for itself. That means, when we link you to buying sites, we may earn a small affiliate commission income if you buy through our links ( the price you pay is no different whether you go through us or not.)
We choose our own equipment, and have bought everything ourselves. We are not linked with any other companies – the opinions are all our own. We want everyone to have the confidence to be able to choose to buy what they need too (rather than falling into the trap of buying only what big editors and advertisers want them to buy.) We also love the challenge of being such a small site that can beat the big companies on google to get our honest reviews to you.
This is a passion, so we get a lot of satisfaction, a daily focus on living more fully… and a lot of happiness in our pocket.
If you like, you can support us by buying us a coffee, while we work. ( Thank-you :)))