About Hey Pesto!

If I ever manage to write a cookbook I can promise you the foreword will not read ‘I learned to cook at my mother’s knee…. ‘ In school I eschewed Home Economics in favour of science. I didn’t need to learn how to cook – after all I was going to be an Engineer and I’d be able to afford to pay someone to cook for me , wouldn’t I??

I did learn to cook after a fashion in my twenties – my speciality was tuna and pasta bake, out of a packet. Eating out was so much easier than cooking !

Then for some reason I started buying cookbooks and trying things – not always successfully. In 2001 I needed a break from city life and I opted for a week course in Ballymaloe Cookery School. A strange choice I know but it was a turning point in my life. A year later I turned my back on engineering and enrolled on the Ballymaloe fulltime course. And the rest as they say is history.

12 years and 2 house/kitchen moves later my catering business Hey Pesto! is going strong with the main focus on canapés and corporate lunches . In the last few years I’ve also branched out into teaching others how to cook – and I love it.

I am a Fáilte Ireland Food Ambassador , Chairperson of Offaly Delicious Food Network, and was honoured to be chosen as Offaly Business Woman of the Year 2012.