red-headed woman.

hello! i'm kirsty, i'm 22 years old, and i currently live in a semi-rural area of northampton, in the midlands of england.

i have trouble taking myself seriously, and as a result so does everybody else, so i will try and keep this to the point before my attempts at comedic self-deprecation get irritating.

i am a barmaid by profession, currently working for a large corporate that i won't mention by name, in my local pub. i originally wanted to be a lecturer in english literature but a combination of personal and national/international events let me to decide it would only be the route to a lot of personal angst and a feeling of selling out politically. i love my job, it's social, has a physical as well as a mental element, and i get sent off to beer and wine school for days at a time to learn about one of my favourite things in the universe: booze. i'm slowly allowing myself to dream that having my own pub one day is a possibility.

i got interested in food at university, as a way to break a fairly unhealthy body-image cycle. when i get interested in something i end up very caught up in reading around it as far as i can, and this happened very quickly with food. i was beyond the basic student kitchen equipment and knowledge set before the end of my first term in halls of residence, and i quickly gained a reputation among my friends as quite the cook (i wouldn't necessarily take them at their hyperbolic word on that, you should see what some of them ate when left to their own devices).

my approach to cooking has developed along my personal political axes, much the same way everything else i turn my mind to does. i gave up eating meat last year because i could no longer rationalize it given my unease about industrial meat farming. i eat seasonally, and as locally as possible (i have recently begun growing my own vegetables and am slowly transforming the hideously neglected garden here into a functioning organic source of food), and food waste is a pet hate of mine. i've even taken to the odd spot of foraging, something i hope to expand on in my time in the countryside.

i worship the ground nigel slater walks on, but will also doff my hat to simon rimmer, good old hugh fearnely whittingstall, and the right honourable miss nigella lawson (what, i love cake, yeah?). if i'm not cooking i'm out on the piss trying to find somewhere to do karaoke, visiting friends on the south coast, knitting, sewing or otherwise crafting, trying to read, or buying more clothes than i conceivably need. also, my love for kanye west and my desire to one day be a female rapper know no bounds whatsoever.