A reset and re-introduction

Hi, I’m Mark! And I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing in the kitchen.

Hello and welcome to my substack. I’m Mark, a thirty-something survivor of the 9-5 finding his way around the kitchen for the first time. Currently living in the beautiful Devon countryside with my partner Ben and dog Hiro (you will see a lot of him) - I’m documenting my journey to become a better cook and photographer. I’m learning a lot, and I would love to have you along for the ride.

After an enthusiastic start to this new ’hobby’ - life inevitably got in the way. Or rather, this easily became less of a priority than the rest of the things on my metaphorical plate due to me treating this as a ‘hobby’.

After a very interesting, exciting, educational (and dare I say, life changing) couple of weeks - a passion I didn’t realise I had for food and writing has been ignited. I’m ready to fully commit to carving my own little space here on Substack.

Is anyone else obsessed with making blueberry banana bread?

I’m much better with pictures than I am with words - but hopefully you’ll enjoy my posts nevertheless. If anything, it will be a great indication that I’m only using AI (more on that below) as a mentor - rather than to write and edit my posts for me!

Full disclosure, I actually started Taisty Bytes on a different platform before discovering how amazing the community was here on Substack. So I thought, having reset my thought process and carefully crafting my About page to set out exactly what I’ll be doing here - it would be good to share that with you and do a proper introduction of sorts.

What you will find here:

• A new journal entry each Sunday, detailing what I’ve been up to in the kitchen that week. Expect tales, recipes and lots of delicious food photography. I have no idea what I’m doing what I’m doing in the kitchen - so this is going to be a live journal documenting my learning process and hopefully it will prove helpful to you, too!

• Hello, Dawn! Taisty Bytes is named so not only for the (hopeful) outcome of tasty food, but also because I’ll be enlisting AI as my trusty kitchen helper - affectionately named, Dawn. Sources such as cook books and YouTube are invaluable learning tools - but imagine having a digital Mary Berry in your kitchen, there to ask questions like “what is the best way to whisk cream for a chocolate soufflé”. (is there whisked cream in a chocolate soufflé? I don’t know!) I’ll transparently be sharing what questions I’ve asked and also any recipes that I’ve tried that have been purely AI generated.

• Coming soon: Updates on a kitchen/recipe database that I’ll be building. How many times have you geared yourself up to take on a new recipe in the kitchen only to realise that there’s actually a 2 hour prep time before you can really get stuck in? Got a spare punnet of blueberries in the fridge? Looking for gluten free bread recipes? My idea is to have all this information in one place - with a quick search you’ll be able to find a plethora of tasty recipes with prep times sorted by multiple categories.

Join the crew!

I want this substack to become a community where we all learn, laugh and love food together. Perhaps, like me, you’re just finding your way around the kitchen, or maybe you have years of fantastic experience and tips to offer - everyone is very much welcome. If that sounds good to you, subscribe!

Feel free to follow me over on Instagram too!

Me and my trusty sidekick, Hiro. I’m on the right!

A little bit about me…

I grew up on a farm in Lancashire, in a big family home that always had an open door to friends and family. My journey so far has been marked by several exciting chapters— being an Under 18 show jumping champion, a social media trainer, a web developer, a graphic designer, and a small business owner. These experiences have led me to where I am now, still finding humour in the fact that, despite these accomplishments, I know absolutely nothing about food or what to do in the kitchen!

And so, having got to a point in my life where I’m finding myself feeling a bit lost - I’m hoping that my next chapter may just be something rather tasty.

See you on Sunday for my first ‘official’ Journal entry!