Opening lines & first bites
Welcome!
A life cooked off-script: a squiggly path into unfussy, life-inspired recipes, seasonal stories & the joy of figuring it out.
Hello!
I’m Hannah, or Han, and my path has been a bit squiggly.
On paper, I wasn’t supposed to be doing what I am today. Baby ballet, A-level drama, a musical theatre degree - the script was written. I should be learning lyrics, not writing recipes.
But I’ve come to realise that life works better off-script.
It’s the phrase I’ve coined to describe my squiggly career path from jazz hands to jars of beans. Yet somehow, it feels like the most natural plot twist of all.
The name ‘Table Read’ stems from my musical theatre roots. In the West End, a table read is when the cast gathers around a table to read through the script for the first time - where stories unfold and connections are made. And so it’s sort of similar at other tables - kitchen, coffee, high-top, candlelit corner tables - only with the addition of delicious food, where we have a natter, savour the “now”, and kick back with the things and people that make us feel good.
What you’ll find here is loose, life-inspired cooking and storytelling - more feeling than formula, sparked by memory, craving or curiosity. Off-script, as we like to say. Recipes shaped by the seasons, memories, experiences, cravings, getting things wrong and just giving it a go.
I like staying curious and open. I love tap dancing alongside writing, alongside dinner with friends, alongside cooking from scratch, alongside having takeaways, alongside yoga, alongside hiking up mountains, alongside reading, alongside slobbing on the sofa most evenings with something real good on TV. We’re all worth so much more than fitting into one box.
Maybe that’s the whole point.
You don’t need to have “arrived” to enjoy where you are.