Hi, I am Karen, founder of Come and Cook and I am passionate about cooking and getting kids and teens into the kitchen. Cooking has always brought me joy, satisfaction and fulfilled a personal need for creativity.

I am a mum of two teens and understand food issues with fussy eaters, cater to inquisitive young chefs and have taught skills to a wide range of ages and abilities in my time teaching.

Training and working as a primary school teacher, I branched out and began my own cooking business while living in London (2002-2010) because I wanted to share my skills as well as love of cooking with others. I also believe there is an energy within everyone which deserves a creative outlet.

Originally, I was providing practical kids’ cooking parties, and this evolved into teaching about healthy food in hands-on cooking classes, teacher-training and parent courses schools London-wide.

During this time, School Dinners hit the headlines because they were exposed as having poor nutritional value. This exposure brought further interest from schools that realised practical and healthy food experiences needed to be held in order for early intervention in children’s health to occur.

Realising that teaching and demonstrating cooking was the most rewarding time of my working years, I began cooking classes here in Brisbane on my return to Australia with our young family.

Here in Brisbane I started running classes in our own, family kitchen which became way too small for the groups. We renovated in 2018 and used half of our downstairs garage as the purpose built teaching space that expanded in 2022 to the whole area.

In the time since starting I have provided a wide variety of workshops including local council classes on waste reduction as well as meal-making classes for kids and teens, cooking parties, even occasional fun cooking evenings for adults. NDIS group and private workshops that develop life-skills and kitchen confidence as well as a safe, social space have emerged over this time as well.

The future is unknown but I do love what I do and try to inspire the next generation to enjoy hands-on creativity and just get cooking!