Let me tell you more about The Wandering Kitchen. It’s a pop-up restaurant set up by myself and my partner, Ed. I come from a front-of-house management background in catering and he is a trained chef, who trained with the likes of Albert Roux. We were both working in marketing and sales until May last year when we decided to give it up and start The Wandering Kitchen, a mobile restaurant for Oxfordshire and Berkshire and we launched with two events just before Christmas in Ewelme and Tetsworth.

We decided to go mobile because, first of all we couldn’t afford our own premises but also because the nature of the high street is changing and we didn’t want to commit to a permanent venue and then for something to go wrong. Also we are both quite nomadic and this business model allows us to carry on travelling and adventuring while making a living. We now have six Village Restaurant events booked in for 2014 and the locations and dates are listed on our website, mainly in rural village halls.

We wanted to bring food to the people in villages so that they don’t have to travel a long way to eat well, but also as a way of bringing communities together. Our aim is to offer high quality food, service and atmosphere in village halls which aren’t very commonly thought of as glamourous places, but the transformation is all part of the process and fun of the event.

We’ve had some amazing feedback from our first two events, especially about the quality and standard of the food. And even though I am not the chef or an amazing cook I know how good Ed’s food is. He changed my opinion of many foods and especially meat, and cooks a lot with game which I would have avoided before I met him but now really like.

He has also brought in other great young chefs to work with us and this is also an important part of what we want to do, by encouraging young people to be creative with food. We want to take the passion and excitement that young people have and turn it into amazing food as we are too often eating mediocre food in restaurants prepared with no care. (I will get off my soap box now).

The Wandering Lodge is our mobile catering arm that Ed is converting at the moment from a double glazing sales trailer, transforming it into a mobile catering trailer that looks like a hunting lodge. Our theme is rustic, gamey and a little bit mystical, and we will be taking The Wandering Lodge to festivals and events over the summer. Oh, and I am having a baby in three weeks time! We found out we were having a baby a month after we decided to quit our jobs and start The Wandering Kitchen! So it’s a very interesting time for us.

If you want to know more about the two of us visit the website thewanderingkitchen.co.uk/about-us/