Piwik

By Odette Freedman, Account Director

Stylist Live popped-up in north London for a weekend to give some lucky consumers access to a plethora of celebrity and industry leader talks, fashion, beauty and home discounts, brand experiences, gorgeous treatments, tasters and more. We went along to check it out and attend a talk with Gizzi Irskine to see what the chef extraordinaire, cookbook writer and blogging sensation had to say about the development of the food industry over the last ten years. Growing up with her mother based in Thailand, and an English upbringing, it was no surprise that she regaled with delight the availability of world foods in the UK, and the relatively new availability of Asian spices in the supermarket aisles.

As an at-home chef, and an experimental cook, Gizzi was happy to update on her favourite dishes to serve for friends, her efforts to make the buffet a cool phenomenon again, and her love for comfort food. Let’s not forget that it’s Gizzi’s ethos to put hard-work into her cooking, and the new fad for easy meals immediately counteracts her methods and is definitely not her thing – a Gizzi style spag bol can take six hours to make!

For her, with comfort foods being it’s all in the ease of creation, so she can’t leave behind a good old beans on toast for a lazy day, but for a brekkie, there’s nothing better than a more complex homemade puttenesca… a far cry from our shop-bought granolas!

Being renowned as a queen of condiments, her pantry is a haven for all things spices and rices, so any ‘quick’ fixes are often a taste sensation. Alongside the light-hearted stories of her childhood and preference in food, was also the message the getting somewhere takes hard work. Not one to slate the chef-world of apparent misogyny, Gizzi has overcome any pre-conceived ideas that it was a ‘man’s world’ in the kitchen, and worked with some of the best… None of which she can mention, but all of which we could guess (an extremely experimental Michelin star chef was the clue…)

After our entertaining talk from Gizzi Irskine we made our way through the masses for a glass of pink bubbles and to peruse household names that would make your eyes stand on stalks…. Definitely one to put in the diary for next year to see Caitlyn Moran do her thang, grab a discount from Liz Earle, a massage from Wellness…. And lots lots more!