Food has been a hugely important part of my life ever since I was a little girl growing up in Hong Kong. My father, an old-school Chinese gentleman, and I shared a big passion for food. My fondest memories of him are late night outings, scouring the city for the best snacks, noodles, tripes or some other indescribable delights. When it came to food, my mother, who is French, was far more moderate, which is probably why I was so fascinated during our summers in the south of France watching my grandmother and aunt, who were both passionate cooks and the latter, at least to me, a magician at the stove. Whether in Hong Kong or France, my dearest childhood memories seem to revolve mostly around kitchens, restaurants and family tables.

So, food became my great passion and a cherished hobby, but I never dreamed it would be my career.  I studied finance instead, both in Paris and London, and later I had many good years working in television.
My husband Oddur, an Icelandic photographer, shares my passion, and together we picked up where my father and I left off, eating our way through Paris where we lived and in the summers in Italy, where we liked to take our children for their school holidays.

It wasn’t until we made a life-changing decision to move to a farmhouse in the French countryside with our growing family that food took absolutely centre stage. We grew our own vegetables, we spent our time in markets seeking the freshest produce, we foraged for mushrooms and cycled or drove countless roads looking for the best food we could find in the region.

One night, probably after washing the dishes and putting the kids to bed, I started a simple cooking blog. As a way of sharing our lives with friends and family and perhaps a few other like-minded people who like food as much as we do.

I somehow got an audience; it didn’t hurt that my husband is a photographer and I guess my unbridled passion for family cooking shone through my writing and recipes. It was a genuine hobby and nothing more.

Soon after I was offered, almost out of the blue, to write my first cookbook, which was a fun adventure for all of us, and luckily, it was very well received. A TV show in France followed, and another cookbook, French Country Cooking, two years later.

As the children matured, we decided to turn the page once more and live out another fantasy of ours, which was to spend some time in Italy. So we closed our doors in France and opened new ones in Turin where we have now lived for several years. Italian food in one of my loves, and our first project here was a regional Italian cookbook, Old World Italian, published in 2020.

These days I’m putting the final touches on my fourth book, A Kitchen in Italy. It’s a return to the roots of sorts, all based around family cooking and the food I cook every day for my family in our kitchen here in Turin.

Over the last decade or so I have been lucky enough to work with some incredible, talented and creative people on various collaborations, mostly to do with cooking, family life and spreading culinary joy in various forms and shapes.

Another side project that had occupied our time since 2015 is the handful of workshops we host every year, first at our home in France and later in Italy and other destinations. These have been very gratifying experiences. At first I was hesitant opening our doors to strangers but it seems that sharing a meal together at a communal table is a international language that everyone speaks and loves.

As for the future, who knows what it holds, family will always take centre stage for me, and good food will never be far away. I cook as much for my family as I always did but as the years go by my eye has started to wander towards tranquility and a slower pace. Yoga is now as important to me as steak béarnaise used to be (still love it though.)

I look forward to continuing this journey with all of you, let’s continue to celebrate life together.

Mimi x

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