Raw & Cured Creative Chef: A Day In The Life

Sheila Hulme is Creative Chef of Raw & Cured, the Lime Wood Herb House healthy raw food bar. Raw & Cured offers freshly made salads, cured fish and meat from Lime Wood’s own Smoke House, as well as fresh juices and smoothies. These dishes are great for your digestive system because they don’t affect your internal temperature, resulting in a consistent level of energy. Food loses many nutrients, not to mention flavour, when it’s overcooked. Sheila has been an 80-20% raw food consumer for many years now.

Sheila says:

I’m an early riser, especially in the Summer when the morning sunlight is beaming in – sometimes I can be up as early as 4.30am! The first thing I do is make a cup of tea. My start time at Raw & Cured can be anything between 7am and 10.30am. I live a good 35 minute drive from work but my commute takes me through the centre of the beautiful New Forest, so generally the worst traffic jams are caused by slow moving New Forest ponies!

When my husband fell ill some years ago, I started looking into and experimenting with different diets and ways to eat to best care for and look after the body.This is when I came across the raw food movement and now it’s an integral part of mine and my family’s life. My favourite part of the job is converting someone to the flavours and benefits of raw food, and proving how easy it is to transfer some of the techniques to their home cooking. My least favourite is hearing parents say to their children ‘There is nothing on the menu you would like’!

When I was a child I wanted to be a gymnast, I would have loved a good routine on the asymmetric bars. I also enjoy making costumes and doing stage and fancy dress makeup – anything creative like that! I always loved cooking, so I started off my career by taking a Cordon Bleu course, which led me to work for catering companies, other hotels and eventually private catering. I came on board to launch Raw & Cured when Herb House opened nearly 6 years ago. The best advice I received is that you should always go to bed thinking you have changed the world in some way!

I have no particular lunchtime ritual, as we work shifts and Raw & Cured can get very busy, so I often eat at different times. I always have nuts and seed to snack on though. I don’t have a regular finish time either, but I love to get home and sit in the garden as often as I can. I don’t have a regular workout routine, but working in catering and hospitality is very physically demanding. I walked 7.5 miles yesterday! As my children have all left home now and my shifts vary I don’t cook at home regularly now either. I tend to make a big batch of something that will last a few days – raw food lasts better than cooked food!

I don’t have any particular websites/apps that I follow regularly, but I do like to keep on top of the trends in the food and wellness industries – especially as there is so much out there now. I get a lot of inspiration from cookery books, and like the challenge of turning a regular dish into a raw one – one of our favourites is ‘Chilli not Carne’, a totally raw, vegan version of ‘Chilli con Carne’.