about

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all”

I am an ex corporate slave now building and living a dream life in Cape Town, South Africa.

Two years ago I took the plunge and embarked on my third career, running my small boutique baking business and freelancing as a food stylist. 

Words cannot describe how much I love what I do and how I love being my own boss.

Since as long as I can remember, I have been passionate and slightly obsessed with all things food.  I am starting this blog as a way to document my foodie adventures and eating experiences, in my kitchen and out.  I am hoping it will encourage me to cook and entertain more and to take my skills to another level by breaking new ground and getting very experimental.

right from the begining I loved tucking in

Since TheCupcakeKitchen came into fruition in January 2008, I have been baking up a storm. I am constantly searching for THE best shortbread, brownie, cupcake, cookie and whatever recipe. The journey continues…..

I love new food products or just good ones that deliver and retail products are very often my inspiration in my cooking.  From my past life experience as a food marketer,  I know that some clever marketing and food scientist minds were behind the development of the products that land up on the shelf.  Thus I LOVE food shopping and spend hours and days wondering around supermarkets when I travel. So much information can be gathered by looking at brands, ranging, line extensions etc. As a food stylist I am often hunting down that elusive ingredient.

…oh and I also LOVE wine. The affair started when I was 19 years old – so some mention must be made of ‘beverages’. I have been through years where I have taken it quite seriously and quaffed it with much focus and intellectual participation.  These days I find myself thinking a little less about it and just enjoying the stuff and am always on the look out for great value, great tasting offerings (it is a recession after all).

a long time ago in London enjoying the wine

 My library consists of around 100 cook books and I have an embarrassingly large number of food magazine piles (to which I do refer back to from time to time in my research)….and this pile just grows and grows each month.  Its time for me to work my way through some of this vast material and do those recipes I have been dreaming about as well as creating a few of my own.

Above all I simply LOVE to eat.

ps. Most the pictures on my blog are taken by myself and I shoot with a Cannon 30D…mainly using my very fabulous 60mm macro lens.  I also have a  point and shoot that gets dragged around pretty much everywhere. Regrettably the light is not always brilliant in the 1920′s ramshackle cottage that I live in, but I do my best.

Samantha Linsell                                      email: slinsell@gmail.com

• samanthalinsell.com
• thecupcakekitchen.co.za