Early days and college

Me, around 7 years old

My name is Delyth Ann Ambler

I live in English Bay, Vancouver, BC, Canada

I 'm married to Neil Charles Ambler

My email address is delamb@shaw.ca

I have always loved food. I know this is a really obvious thing to say, but, really, even from a young age, it was all I thought about. Growing up surrounded by the production of it probably contributed a lot. My parents had their own bakery and shop, my dad baking and my mum keeping shop. We always had fresh bread, pasties, cakes, pies and tarts and the smell of baking wafting through the house, (at first, later we couldn't smell it anymore). I  remember playing with my mum's spice rack, smelling the curry powder and wishing I could do something with it, not yet cooking myself but really happy to play with all the equipment and feeling a need to create beginning to form.

My sister, Lisa, probably thinking she looks pretty cool

My sister was also into food. She was on track to attend culinary college before a young pregnancy meant an early departure from school. I remember her using cucumber as a vegetable in curries which I always thought was quite weird and the Quiche Lorraines that she made for a little while to sell in the shop. Later, with a now ex-boyfriend, she took over the business after my mum and dad semi-retired. They were very successful for a while. My dad had huge, deep ovens in the bakery, enough to hold all the bread and pastries for the day and they would roast huge joints of ham and pork in them for hours on end. The smell of roasting meat would drift up to our kitchen and we would always sneak down to pick off the crispy ends and tear off pieces of the flesh. They would later be sliced up and sandwiched between my dad's fluffy bread rolls, a huge hit, especially with the lunch time school crowds.

My mum and dad's business. They retired a few years ago

I spent my childhood attending restaurants with my parents most Saturday nights in the South Wales area and particularly remember an amazing Coq-Au-Vin at the Marquis of Bute pub and restaurant. The chicken had been left to simmer in the wine for so long it was almost gelatinous as it fell off the bone. Chicken with vodka, chocolate mousse with brandy were also favourites at a local brasserie and a holiday to Cyprus filled me with delight as I sampled the herbal, savoury kleftika, whole suckling pig cooked in an adapted cement mixer and beautiful succulent white fish with tomatoes and olives. We became quite friendly with the restaurant owner and I remember my mum and dad being proud of their young Welsh daughter for not flinching away when he kissed me on both cheeks!

Mum and dad cooked amazing food at home too. It was extremely exotic at the time but now I suppose it would be considered classic retro. Beef goulash, (a favourite with its dark red colour and paprika spiciness and noodles), Beef stroganoff, chow mein and a long and delicious obsession with cooking Chinese food. Dad and I would go to the local shop and try to find the elusive ingredients: black bean sauce, yellow bean, water chestnuts and bamboo shoots. We also had curry competitions, (Mum would shy away from spicy food then - she really loves it now). Dad once used a tin of tomato soup as a flavour base for the leftover turkey curry he was preparing one boxing day.

Porec, Croatia, 1980

As a family we started travelling quite early on. At the age of  seven I took my first trip abroad. Yugoslavia, now Croatia, is a vague, hazy memory. I remember just glimpses of it, such things as devouring scampi in the shells, at first throwing a temper tantrum, refusing to touch the alien looking things. We had to buy special sandals to wear in the sea as it was very rocky, I had a bright pink, plastic pair. I remember that there was no tide and my dad's arms covered in angry, red welts, he discovered he suffered from prickly heat. We had to take a boat every day to go to the beach and I remember the breakfasts at the hotel, continental, bread with many types of cold meats, eggs, cheeses and fruit, we must have felt so posh.

As I got a little older, my interest in cooking grew. Here I am with Fred, from HomePride, a UK baking product company. Fred was their mascot and a cartoon character. This was the coveted baking kit that my parents bought me, hopefully thinking I would follow in their footsteps and one day take over their business. The ingenious kit included his hat, which became a mixing bowl and a smaller Fred as a flour shaker. I loved it.

'Never forget your Welsh' was a clever slogan by a Welsh beer manufacturer named Welsh. Therefore the use of the 'your' instead of 'you're' is correct. Never forget your glass of Welsh. But how this resonates for people from Wales. As you can see above, we have a national day called St David's Day on the 1st March, where school children dress in traditional costume and are photographed with what they think are the most adorable looks on their faces. We never forget we're Welsh, something that I am proud of and have had to suffer the consequences of my whole life, (except in Canada). College was particularly bad. If you don't know what I mean, ask an English person what they think a Welsh person sounds like. 

Abandoning all career advice (and my mum's hopes for me of studying English) and forgetting about my interest in food for a while, I attended art school from 1991 - 1995 studying Fine Art. For this I moved to Southampton in England which is where I met my future husband, Neil.

Even though my youthful encounters with food left me with a healthy interest and appetite, it wasn’t until I went to college that I really learnt to cook. There I met Kali, a Londoner with an Indian heritage and a head-full of simple and delicious Indian recipes which she had learnt from her mum. Suddenly the kitchen was alive with the aroma of cumin seeds, cardamom pods and bright yellow turmeric. Kali, of course, didn’t use curry powder, she roasted and ground her own spices and made chapattis from whole-wheat flour which she rolled out with a long, green and yellow rolling pin, frying them in a dry frying pan which would smoke like crazy and make our eyes water. This was Indian food at its most basic, wholesome form and I still make her onion, tomato and potato curry today, frying the black mustard seeds in hot oil until they pop, then adding a teaspoon of cumin, coriander and turmeric, one piece of cinnamon and a couple of green cardamoms. This is all fried for one minute before adding the tin of chopped tomatoes and several peeled, diced potatoes which cook gradually until they are soft, then adding enough salt, coriander and lemon juice to taste. It’s so simple, but tastes incredible with a lovely home made feel.

Sean was also an inspiration. Half Indian, half Pinner in Middlesex, he would make weird concoctions like beef stew into which he would place a tea-bag and let it stew for the last 30 minutes of cooking. The result was that the tea flavour was almost unrecognizable but it definitely added a note of flavour, similar to using celery in the basic sweating of vegetables for a casserole.

I also remember eating pheasant for the first time with fennel braised in white wine with pesto and cream added at the last moment. It was another sublime revelation although I found about ten lead shots in my mouth from the pheasant!