About Me

Hello and welcome to Miss Food Fairy, where magical food is made simple. My name’s Nicole and I’m so glad to see you.

Miss Food Fairy is my cookbook – all the recipes I create and cook and any family members recipes they like to share with me. It’s where my inspiration and adaptation of my favourite cookbooks recipes and other amazing foodies recipes come together, in one place.

My earliest memories of cooking, or helping (tasting) that I remember was with my nanna, making her apricot jam. I think I was around 8 years old when I was helping jar jam. We’d then make scones from scratch, with my younger sister – nothing better than warm scones with homemade jam – childhood memories! At that stage, cooking wasn’t something I ever thought of as a career, eating was what I enjoyed the most!

My sister & I used to prepare the family dinners after as our mum worked full time. It always seemed like a chore but I now know that this is where I learnt the basics of cooking – mash potato, spaghetti Bolognese, chicken schnitzel and roast lamb with roast potatoes. These are still some of my absolute favourites to this day!

Home economics classes at school – which seems to be thing of the past here in Melbourne – was lots of fun, I really enjoyed that class. I was really disappointed when they didn’t offer it as a class after Year 9! I remember cooking rabbit one day as part of a historical cooking class. The smell was not that great but at least the rabbit was cooked (looking back, I’m sure it could have used plenty more seasoning!)

CAREER & FOOD:
Since I left school, I always worked in the retail sector, mainly fashion. While working full-time throughout my twenties, I never really cooked during the week. My sister and I lived together, we’d always just microwave packet pasta with canned tuna or turned the oven on to heat a frozen meal – it was always quick and easy. Weekends, we’d cook a big Bolognese so we’d have leftovers to re-heat during the week.

I’ve always loved food, especially eating it, but it really hasn’t been nurtured as much as it has over the past seven-eight years. Almost 10 years ago my life became complete – I met my future husband and I became an auntie for the first time. I started cooking to entertain and impress our friends, as well as my husband but I still wasn’t cooking to my full potential as working full-time didn’t allow me to challenge myself or try new things.

My husband and I started our own online business seven years ago, selling drymount photo albums. Through working from home, I had the opportunity to expand my cooking skills. I went back to Culinary School where I achieved my Certificate III in Commercial Cookery (January 2016). I’ve learnt a lot of great cooking techniques and cooked some amazing dishes that I thought I’d never cook.

I LOVE eating, cooking and researching my favourite cuisine, Asian. I think I have hopefully perfected the art of dumpling making, which I sell to family & friends.

I LOVE spices. I love the way they add complexity and dimension to food. I also love herbs and chillies – I want to learn as much as I can about all of them, especially about how they’re beneficial for our health.

I’m a self-taught recipe developer, food stylist and food photographer.

RECIPE SOURCES:
I find inspiration from all over – websites, food blogs and my huge collection of cookbooks.

When I take inspiration or adapt a recipe to suit my needs, the original source is always acknowledged, either via a ping back or using the website or blog in my post.

COOKING MEASUREMENTS:
I use standard Australian measuring cups, spoons and oven temperatures. Where I can, I try to give you gram and millilitre measurements to make it a little easier for everyone, especially if you’re overseas. I’m currently in the process of finding a measurement convertor to add here for everyone’s benefit.

RECIPE TESTING:
All recipes have been tried and tested two-three times prior to posting. I will never post a recipe where the end result is not perfect or the flavours weren’t working well.

COMMENTS:
I love hearing from you! I’m so glad that you’re taking the time to make my food journey an even more exciting experience! I love engaging with all my readers. I read and reply to each and every comment. I understand we’re all different with different views and opinions and respect what you have to say. Please note that Miss Food Fairy reserves the right to moderate all comments made to ensure they’re all appropriate to the conversation.

TWITTER, FACEBOOK, PINTEREST, INSTAGRAM:
All forms of my social media, outlay new and different forms of inspiration that speak to me at the time of re-tweeting, pinning or sharing. Occasionally I like to share friends thoughts or ideas as they are something I’m usually passionate about also.

INSPIRATION:
Please see my Inspiration page.