Intentions

Baker, Food Writer and Photographer

How do you make the transition from someone who’s spent their life looking for what they were passionate about, to someone who’s finally found it?

Unless you’re one of the lucky ones who have known all along, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Not just the searching part (although that can be a bloody long journey on its own) but the part that comes after. When you’ve found it.

Last year, I found mine. Food.

And food is a bit of a weird one, isn’t it. It’s omnipresent. Always there, always has been. So it feels like it should have been an easier ‘aha’ moment. But as my grandad would say, ‘you’ve not seen wood fer trees, lad’.

This year we’re officially entering Year 3 of Taisty Bytes and it’s never been clearer that this is the path forward. We’re moving it from side dish to main course (I know, I know - but I love a pun!).

What that path looks is a problem for future me, but for now - heading in this general direction feels pretty great to me.

Hello, if you’re new here I’m Mark - a baker, food writer and photographer.
You’ll also see lots of my sous chef Hiro, too!

I began 2025 with a list of intentions - goals that I was hoping to achieve over the course of the year. Who remembers Beandog Bakery and that cookbook I was hoping to make? Me neither…

If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ll know that last year was pretty rough. Unfortunately, Hiro’s health took a turn and was touch and go at some points. Naturally he became our number one priority. Lots of vets visits, cuddles on the sofa and worry.

But, we saw out the year with him being stable, happy and in a much better place than we could ever have hoped for.

We’ve spent the beginning of this year intentionally slow and enjoying being content.

Hiro has mastered the art of napping.

Despite some setbacks, there were a few things that I was able to check off my intentions list. Pretty huge things, in fact…

1. Cook the Books

This year, I’m making it my mission to actually use them. Enter, Cook the Books. So the idea is: I’ll pick a cookbook and commit to making at least five recipes from it before I move on to the next. No skimming through, realising I don’t have all the ingredients for a certain recipe and putting it back - we’re committing, guys!

And commit we did! What started as a way to actually use my cookbooks and not just collect them, turned out to be one of my most favourite things I’ve ever done. Reading, cooking, photographing and writing about these books have taught me more than I could have imagined about food - how it can be magical, how they can hold memories and how they can form bonds between strangers.

It will come as no surprise that this year, Cook the Books will continue to be a main feature here on Substack - with a few additional surprises to come… more on that soon.

I made some phenomenal dishes over the past year that have pushed my skills in the kitchen and with my photography. Here are a few of my favourites:

2. Writer’s Weekend

Something I’m beyond excited for and feeling incredibly lucky about is that this spring, I’ll be attending a writer’s weekend hosted by the brilliant Mark Diacono and Diana Henry! It’s going to be a few days of hands-on workshops, incredible food and creative inspiration, all set in a beautiful manor house not too far from where I live.

I’ll admit that as someone who is painfully introverted, I’m a bit nervous! Stepping into a room full of talented writers sounds daunting. But I have a feeling this will be one of those experiences that sticks with me forever and will be the catalyst for great change.

It’s funny to think that this time last year I was writing about how excited I was to attend this writing weekend. Little did I know at the time just how life changing it would turn out to be.

Rather than me prattle on about how amazing it was here, I did it much more eloquently in a full post you can read here »

3. The Great Taisty Bytes Bake Off Returns!

…could never have predicted that trying to make caramel would leave me wanting to rock back and forth weeping into a large glass of wine…

So stay tuned for Series 2 of The Great Taisty Bytes Bake Off later this year - where I plan on attempting every challenge this time around!

No caramel-induced tears this year for GTBBO Series 2, but unfortunately as Hiro took ill half way through - my motivation and energy for it waned towards the end. We did manage to complete at least one bake for every week however - and if you’d like to read how that went, I wrote a post for each week here »

Sunny Devon

I’ve got no neat intentions list this time round, but instead a commitment of going all in. I’ve got lots of ideas and plans, and while I can’t share most of them just yet (don’t you hate it when people do that!) - just know that it’s going to be a bloody exciting ride!

What I can share is that I’ve been working on my application for the Guild of Food Writer’s Newcomer Award (eek!) and the first Cook the Books post of the year, which drops next week: Flora Shedden’s Winter in the Highlands.

Here’s to a delicious, fun and exciting 2026! Thanks for being here.