This book is a story; it is an expression of me, through the food I love to cook. These are the ingredients that inspire me, the recipes I have tasted and remade in my own style, the memories that attach themselves and the places that travel with me through a dish experienced, savoured, remembered and recreated.

Everyone has a food story. Perhaps yours is filled with various renditions of 2-minute noodles and spicy sauces; maybe it’s got a ginger crunch your Gran taught you to make.

The pages may outline loose guidelines rather than strict measurements: a dash of this, a splash of that, kneaded until the texture of playdough.

Like any story, it deserves to be enjoyed, experimented with, and added to. Maybe you’ll try a dish at a restaurant and realise that you really should have a go at putting your broccoli on the barbie, or perhaps you’ll challenge yourself to try a new ingredient or method you saw in this very book.

Whatever your food story is, it’s yours, and it expresses a part of you. This is mine, and I hope you enjoy some of my lived experience through reading, tasting – perhaps even recreating – my recipes.