A little bit about me

Me on a good day

I'd like to introduce myself and welcome you to my blog. I'm Doreen Simpson known to my Facebook followers as Dor. I started my page on Facebook in 2011 just to make contact with other like-minded fanatical cooks like myself. My goodness how the experience has changed my life. I've met so many wonderful people who have become such firm friends in a relatively short space of time. After cooking for virtually all of my long life I thought I'd seen it all, but no, I have learnt so much through my fellow bloggers. There's a whole world out there of wonderful food that I can't wait try and I'd love you to join me.

Here's a little bit about my life.

I worked for the Midland Bank on leaving school. To this day I wonder why? I was never cut out for office work and I spent a good deal of my time there organising our social events and disappearing to the kitchen to knock up lunch for everyone. But the money was good and I stayed with them for 12 years.
After an unsuccessful marriage I ventured into the cake making world and although I made a reasonable living out of it I decided to go to college to get my City & Guilds and become a chef. It was great fun, I enjoyed every minute of it and never looked back.
I was employed by a large catering company where I really learned my trade and left after two years to start up on my own.
I've run a successful catering company 'La Difference Catering' for the last 20 years now & enjoyed catering for the 'rich and infamous' of the Cheshire set but mainly for ordinary folk like you and I who have something lovely to celebrate.
The highlight of my career happened last year when I catered at a weekend's shoot for The Duke of Edinburgh, Lord Brabourne (Mountbatten's son) and several others of the nobility. I prepared afternoon tea for them, dinner in the evening and breakfast the following morning. It was quite nerve racking and I spent weeks of sleepness nights working up to it, but in the end I thoroughly enjoyed it, the Prince was an absolute delight and such a lovely chap.
Years of cooking & organising events have given me a wealth of experience that I would love to share with you all. If you are planning to start a career in catering then I can offer you any advice that you may need. Also if you're planning a large event yourself then I'm willing to help you.
I hope to bring you a few stories of triumphs and disasters in my career, hopefully in a humourous way along with glimpses of my very happy home life with my partner Clive and my two lovable Jack Russells, Bugsy & Molly.
But the main purpose of my blog will be to share my recipes with you. Don't worry I've got thousands. Trouble is it'll take me years to post them all.

Dor xxx