WELCOME ABOARD...THE FRENCH (MOSTLY) FOOD AND TRAVEL BUS

My mum, Iris : “Alison… promise me something. Promise me you will always cook”

ONCE A CHEF ALWAYS A CHEF…AND THEN SOME

Cooking is the only thing I've ever known, in a professional sense. Making others feel happy because I could recreate their culinary memories, or bring them joy through testing out authentic local culture and dishes wherever I was at the time.

I knew even at the age of 18 and 19 years old that my passion for cooking, could also be my ticket to travel. It turns out I was right. If anyone were to ask me today, what I’d change if I had the chance to do it again…I’d still cook. I started out cooking with Mum at a very young age and, by the time I was 12 years old, I was handling the Christmas family lunch - single handed.

I loved it. The kitchen was my kingdom. I felt at home and worked with a sense of automation whilst knowing the exact direction of flow AND the outcome, yet not being aware of how I’d get there. It just happened. I still can’t explain it to this day. Cooking is feeling, it’s a rhythm and it’s dynamic and evolving.

I’d found my place and as a young woman, I was proud of it. I’d found something I was good at AND it got me half way around the world. Sure, I picked up a few uni degrees and 1st class honours and… and. But they weren’t for my benefit. I said I didn’t think I’d change anything if I were to do it all again. I reckon, the thing I’d change would be wasting so much time studying and aiming for papers and diplomas when I could have been out there learning and earning.

Gah… we live and learn!! I don’t regret it. I don’t regret anything, not really. I’ve live a thoroughly and outrageously colourful life thus far. I don’t intend stopping my style of living anytime soon, though perhaps I’ll live a teeny tiny bit more cautiously. We do what we do at the time, because it feels right, no matter the reason. There aren’t any rules, except for not hurting anyone. That’s not allowed.

When it comes to cooking, travel and life diaries, the filters are off. That’s how I like it. I was always a truly useless fibber, so giving a candid account of my shenanigans is about all I can manage. Anything beyond that is quite simply impossible to maintain long-term.

My world dips in and out of French culture and culinary adventures, unpretentious memoirs, gadding about and doing my utmost to avoid expletives in my posts and podcasts. Slip ups would be an utter disaster and my mother would NOT approve!

So… why become a reader?

Jolly Good Question!

I write and create from the heart and soul. I speak my mind. Quite honestly, what you see is what you get.

Anthony Bourdain, Prue Leith and Phil Rosenthal are my heroes. Are we there yet?

I’m Aly, a food and travel writer, chef (qualified and everything!) author currently living in Annecy, the French Alps. I’ve travelled all my adult life through my career as a chef on yachts, in villas and ski chalets. It all sounds rather fancy, but I can assure you this publication of cooking and life musings is gritty real life and far from being ultra fancy.

We might go a bit fancy. But you’ll have advanced warning!

Who is Aly ?

My late Mum, Iris, was largely responsible for my interest in cooking, and she practially booted my behind out of the door when I mentioned my desire to travel. I remember cooking with Mum and soaking up everything she taught me.. and concocting in our family kitchen from a very early age. There was always spicy, tangy chutney bubbling on the stove, which made your saliva glands smart like when you eat Monster Munch Pickled Onion. There’d be cake or sugar-tossed shortbread biscuits on a cooling rack when I got home from school. When I was only 7 or 8 years old, she would make curries, homemade scone-based pizzas and lasagne for when friends came over for tea, and back then in the mid 70s that was rather cool! She was a very with-it mum!

In case you’re wondering my culinary idols are the magnificently real Anthony Bourdain, vibrantly colourful and very cool Prue Leith, a bit of Jamie Oliver (everyone, right?) and Chetna Makan fabulous Great British Baker winner. Is it starting to make some sense yet? Come on in… Who knows, you might like it.

Is it starting to make some sense yet? Come on in… Who knows, you might like it.

I began my hospitality and tourism career at 16 years old, first at college studying hotel operations and part time jobs in restaurant and pub kitchens. From there it was onto polytechnic for some more hotels and catering management training followed by a year studying Cordon Blue Cookery at what was The Tante Marie School of Cookery.

Still awake? Grab a nap. I don’t mind. But we ARE almost at the crunch point!

By the time I was 21 years old, I had found my first ever role as a private chef in a chalet in France. Courchevel, to be precise. I’d already worked on private gigs where I grew up.. but this ABROAD and FRANCE! The private arena was a natural progression triggered via the classifieds section of ‘The Lady Magazine’. It was this and the message board at Tante Marie that led me to work onboard yachts cruising the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and the Caribbean. Sounds like a movie or something. That’s where the travel bug got hold. My DNA had been modified from this point onwards. No looking back.

So here we are…

My travels and work have taken me around the world, visiting many truly magnificent destinations, which have been my true education. That’s something I couldn’t have found in any training centre or school.

I could never focus at school anyway… let alone sit still long enough to find out what I was there for.

Today, I continue to cook, write about life in France and travel stuff. I’ve raised a human reasonably successfully and… here I am with a perpetual itch that needs a scratch.

Let’s cook and have a gab!

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€6 a month OR a whopping big €36 per year. That’s a couple of quid a month. If you’re paying in £££ it’s even less! I can’t use the cappuccino analogy here… a ‘cap’ costs more.

To see and experience this work… would be all I’d need to tell me my job is done.

Raised human ✔️

Food, culture and travel writer for ever more ✔️

I’d love you to join the bus ride. Full suspension and off road tyres with a substantial roll cage. THAT’S where we’re going!

Over and out for now. See you on the inside..

Aly x