Who?
I’m Kate Longden, The Food Doula, Chef, Nurturer, Cooking Coach and Founder of the original food hug meal delivery service offering edible support across the UK. I grew up with food being a central part of family life, both parents working in the food industry as well as cooking flavourful food from scratch being the daily standard.
I assume through osmosis I gathered cooking knowledge by both passive observation and hands on helping. My choice to turn vegetarian aged 13 was met with a firm, ‘Cool, but we’re not cooking more meals than we do now’. So…I started cooking, playing, kitchen potion making. I really believe we all need to come back to our childlike desire for creating without parameters in the kitchen, to unlearn what we may be restricted by, to be free with food.
The cornerstone of my work as The Food Doula is to scaffold people through food at each phase of life. A passion for eating good food may be strong in any of us, but as our nutrition needs, circumstances and preferences change across time, we need a cooking and eating framework to support this. The Food Doula is an ecosystem to deliver that edible support.
Towards the end of my first pregnancy, on maternity from teaching, I batch cooked for the freezer so we could still eat a varied and healthy home cooked diet during my postpartum. She came (Olive- yes my daughter has a food related name!)…and she conquered (my ability to maintain cooking nutritious meals from scratch), something I was certain wouldn’t happen. Little did I know how keeping a small human alive would impact my beloved kitchen downtime. I thanked my past self for preparing some food, but raging postpartum appetite meant it was gone in a flash. Bam! The seed for The Food Doula was planted. So in 2018 I begun the home cooked meal delivery service across the UK, primarily for new parents but subsequently anyone wanting good food when possessing little energy to cook.
“I am a staunch advocate of balance, which is why the food I make is nutrient dense and nourishing but with a dollop of indulgence and comfort! Flavour comes first”.
Food must never be merely functional, but instead a source of explosive sensory joy, therefore cooking the food we want to eat, that is incidental healthy should be available at our fingertips without stress.
Having spent the last 3 years delivering food across the UK I am now on a mission to meet people where they are at, circumstansially by offering a toolkit for cooking incredible food, fast, always.