I’m not sure which I’m more excited about: still being able to say I’m young (just shy of my 35th birthday) or being able to announce that I won the Young British Foodies Foodwriting Award 2013!

A joint winner along with Helen of Food Stories, it was a real honour to be nominated alongside her and Sam Muston of The Independent and all these fabulous people; plus I never say no to canapés and a few free drinks!

Meeting Yotam Ottolenghi was a highlight too, so I think this is a great time to announce that I’ll be joining him and other authors such as Mary Berry at Ebury Publishing. I haven’t crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s on the project yet, but I think you’re going to love it…

Before then however, I’m delighted to say I’m writing and editing the forthcoming Recipes from Brixton Village cookbook through KitchenPress. Publishing in Spring 2014, it will be featuring recipes from all your favourite restaurants and traders in Brixton Village. We’ve got exclusives from Fish Wings and Tings‘ codfish fritters, Kaosarn‘s green curry and Lab G‘s salted caramel ice cream amongst others. (I sense Jay Rayner will be after a copy the minute it’s hot off the press.)

I’m getting used to calling myself a writer these days since I’m signed with an agent and everything. The fantastic Caroline Hardman at Hardman and Swainson is representing me and handling my wide-eyed wonder at all this beautifully!*

I’ll be continuing to blog here and at the Brixton Blog and at risk of sounding a bit like I’m at the Oscars, I’d just like to thank everyone who has been reading at both sites. I love sharing my cooking and writing with you all. Your feedback and comments are fantastic and a real pleasure to read.

Mister North and I will definitely be keeping up our working relationship, and I’m hoping we might even have time to see each other at some point too! He’s also got all kinds of exciting design and photography projects going on around food, which hopefully you’ll get a chance to see at some point soon.

I don’t know about him, but I’m slightly overwhelmed by how far the blog has come in just under 4 years that I think I need a cuppa and a biscuit followed by a lie down so we can keep going!

*Caroline can be contacted at Hardman Swainson.