It’s finally time for The North East heat of Great British Menu 2016!

So you can follow my GBM experience, and hear all about the stories behind my dishes, I’ll be writing daily blog posts about the previous nights episode on here.

It was a very strange experience last night. Sitting down with my family, and turning on the T.V to watch myself. I’ve never been on T.V before, but once I’d climbed out from behind the sofa and got used to the idea, I actually found it really interesting!

It was such a great feeling to get an 8 for my dish. Not a bad score to start with and it felt really good to get the first dish out of the way. I’ve obviously never been in that kind of situation before, it’s so surreal to cook with someone like Tom Aikens peering over your shoulder, but before you know it you’re there cooking, not knowing what to expect and it all goes so quickly! I’ve had a solid start, but I’m equally fully aware that an 8 isn’t a strong enough score to get me a banquet dish, so I really need to keep pushing for those 9/10 scores.

I had a brilliant time cooking with Chris and Mini. Although I got the highest score, Mini definitely stole the show for me, he’s such a cheeky chap and he came across as genuinely nice guy, which he is, and I think the audience will love him for that. They’re great lads, but I must admit we all looked a little blurry eyed in last nights episode. Potentially due to the fact that we’d all lead each other astray a little the night before! So we definitely needed a good nights sleep before heading back to the kitchen.

Also, I’d like to thank everyone for the overwhelming amount of support I received on Twitter and Facebook. Some really heartfelt and encouraging tweets, and some funny ones too! One things for sure, it looks like I won’t need to look for accommodation next time I’m travelling as I’ve had a few offers of places to stay from some lovely ladies…and gents 😉

I hope you will all be tuning in tonight to watch me cook my Mackerel fish dish. And keep an eye out for tomorrows GBM Blog!