Fillet knife at Fish in a Day, Food Safari

When I started as a journalist, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Or rather, what I wanted to specialise in.

Fresh out of a fast-track NCTJ training scheme at Harlow, I did the rounds of internships at the likes of The Independent on Sunday, FT Weekend Magazine and Food and Travel. And it was at Food and Travel that I realised what I knew the most about, food.

I was lucky enough to be offered a job at Food and Travel and found myself writing for other places like Foodepedia, The Arbuturian and The Prodigal Guide on food and drink.

It was great writing about restaurants and chefs and producers but I wanted to write much more about the provenance of food, how it’s made, why things are done a certain way. In essence, I wanted to know much more than I did.

So after almost two years at Food and Travel, I left to train at Leiths School of Food and Wine on their Two Term Diploma. Here are a few snippets of my journey:

The Leiths Diaries: The prelude

The Leiths Diaries: The preparation

The Leiths Diaries: The last night before

The Leiths Diaries: Skills week

The Leiths Diaries: Cooking for 50

The Leiths Diaries: What I’ve learnt so far

The Leiths Diaries: External speakers

The Leiths Diaries: The Wine Lectures

The Leiths Diaries: One year on

Oh, and if you want to find out what I’m getting up to these days, check out my portfolio at qinxie.co.uk. You might also like to look into some of the bursaries and awards out there for food.