Cooking has always been a passion. I was one of those who would watch their grandmother bake – she never used recipes or scales, it was all done by intuition and the feel of the mix – and it always fascinated me.
I think I began, as all little girls do, with making cupcakes – or ‘buns’ as we called them then. From there, it was doing cooking as my skill for all three Duke of Edinburgh Awards. Beef stroganoff became my early signature dish and to this day, it remains the dish I could cook in my sleep if needed!
At university, I started giving low key dinner parties and once back in Norfolk, these progressed to being more adventurous in the kitchen. Straightforward menus for special occasions soon became tasting menus, with a wine flight.
I founded The Delicate Diner in 2016 and in 2018, I applied to be on MasterChef. I have loved the programme since the days of Lloyd Grossman and to my complete surprise, I made it to the final cut and on to the screen.
You can read about my MasterChef journey in my blog over on The Delicate Diner, but suffice to say that it has fulfilled my dreams such as they were. I didn’t go into it to open my own cafe or restaurant; instead, I give cooking demos, hold pop ups, have contributed a recipe to a charity cook book and am a monthly food columnist for Norfolk Online. When lockdown came, I combined my passion for food and writing and did a series of interviews called the Norfolk Foodie, interviewing the likes of Galton Blackiston, Richard Bainbridge, and more.
I was interviewed by Nurtured in Nature about my time on MasterChef, and you can read that here.
I co-founded and ran a local food and drink magazine for two years, nourish – the taste of East Anglia – and then I spent a year working on an amazing cookbook project for a client in the United States, which launches July 2024.
Being a foodie will always be part of my psyche, so do keep up to date with my socials and more for all the latest news from Samantha Mattocks – The Delicate Diner.
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