Through her business Lick The Plates, Danielle Abell wants to inspire women to enjoy cooking by teaching them how to cook from scratch.
Abell said she aims to show other mums the tools and techniques they need to enjoy cooking despite their busy lives.
“Food has always been a big part of my life,” Abell said.
“I remember it came from my Chinese grandmother who just threw stuff together, used what she had, and created delicious meals.
“She didn’t really follow recipes but just to learnt to cook, and became comfortable doing it and enjoyed it.
“I remember that feeling of her competency doing it and her comfort doing it; it didn’t feel like a chore, just a regular part of every day of life.”
While she was a fussy eater when she was young, Abell said she had always wanted to work with food and has since left her corporate life\ to follow this dream.
“I want people to learn how to do it for themselves, that it can be easy, that it can be cheap, and can be so good,” she said.
“I think there is a lot of tools and skills and strategies we can learn so we are not starting from scratch every time we cook a meal, and we do not have to run to the supermarket to get these specific ingredients.
“I think our cooking can flow with our lives a little bit more.”
One of the main tools Abell uses the most when cooking is her Thermomix.
“I got to the stage where I became a really busy mum, and I still wanted to cook to a certain standard because I still really enjoyed cooking and liked eating good food,” Abell said.
“I couldn’t do it anymore, and I needed a tool, something to help me in the kitchen…the Thermomix has done that.”
Online courses, videos, and social content are some of the ways Abell aims to promote her business and hopes other mums will relate to the content she produces – being a busy mum who loves to cook.
“I am doing a lot of videos, writing different stories, just trying to share snippets of my life, not specifically staged, not specifically planned.
“I want to bring women together to inspire each other and do this together.”
Jacinta Counihan