Littleport Life goes behind the scenes again to take a look at the stories behind the adverts!
Local catering business, Kidd’s Kitchen, is run by Debbie at her home in Littleport, and her husband Adrian, who works as a restaurant manager in Cambridge often assists with the icing and decoration of their ever popular homemade speciality cakes etc.
It was a business that seemed tailor made for the Kidds having spent their entire working lives in the catering business. However, it certainly hasn’t been all plain sailing for this entrepreneurial couple. Debbie had an impressive work record starting with her beginning as a front of house employee to becoming a business development manager for a training company; only to lose her job due to ill health. Adrian, a qualified chef, was also made redundant just this March from a high powered Senior Manager’s post in Stansted overseeing 8 restaurants. But fortunately he was able to find employment three month later.
It was five years ago when Debbie was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. As Debbie said, “overnight my whole body came to a shuddering halt” and it took her three and a half years just to come to terms with the condition.
Debbie said that she had always been a fitness fanatic, scheduling 5 morning runs a week as well as gym workouts 5 evenings a week. Along with her running partner she also enjoyed running London Marathons, so you could imagine that her whole world seemed to be tumbling down.
Fibromyalgia is a condition that affects the whole body and she was taking 16 painkillers a day and couldn’t walk without a stick and as Debbie explained; “the condition was really bad when I was setting up on market days working from 7 am to 3.30 pm, I was just totally shattered all the time.”
But then last October I discovered ‘Forever Living’ which is a company marketing Aloe Vera products and I started taking the ‘drinking gel’ which had amazing results. In time I was no longer suffering from insomnia or sleep disturbance, and by January I had stopped talking all my painkillers. The company grows and harvests their own Aloe Vera taking 100% gel from the inner leaf using none of the outer leaves to weaken it down. The dosage is 60 mls a day and you can take up 100 mls which has really made me feel so much better otherwise I would have had to given up our Kidd’s Kitchen business,” revealed Debbie who is now looking to recruit a team of ‘Forever Living’ distributors in Littleport which she says could be a good home based business for any people with children and wanting to earn a bit of money.
Meanwhile, Debbie and Adrian are pleased with the way Kidd’s Kitchen is going and they are inundated with requests from Christening events, weddings as well as running market stalls in Ely and at Downham Market.
“I get a lot of customers who are on their own, so I’m inundated with requests for individual homemade cakes, although I would love to cater for shops which would be my next venture and to get corporate contracts for business lunches is ideally my ambition,” said Debbie, whose cookery skills range from cooking meals on the premises for a wedding reception sit down meal, to providing BBQs and making up numerous delicious buffets.
On their Kidd’s Kitchen website (www.Kidd’sKitchen.co.uk) they have had glowing references from many satisfied customers, and their Facebook page shows off images of their excellent cake baking, icing and decorations which look so scrumptious.
Debbie and Adrian who originally came from Harlow now feel part of the Littleport community since having founded their Kidd’s Kitchen business and their online testimonials include this one:
THANK YOU SO MUCH. We had this great feeling about Kidd’s Kitchen as soon as we had our first meeting. You are wonderful people and easy to get along with.
Then the second meeting (just before the wedding) you made me feel so happy and relaxed. On the day…well, you did the most amazing job ever! From the day – time BBQ to the evening buffet! It was outstanding food. My only regret is that I have no photos of the wonderful spread you achieved that day! I want you to know that we do know how hard you worked that day and words cannot describe how happy we are to have chosen you!
Thanks, Angie & Toms Wedding 30th May 2015 xx”
Hi Debbie + Adrian, hope you’re both well,+ Adrian -stress free i hope now you’re set up new business together :-), i was travelling through cambridge the other day + thought of saying hi, but unfortunately ran out of time, but i read the article about the aloe gel + would really like it if you could send me details of this Debbie, as i believe it could help my wife sally, whose been suffering from the some condition for years now. Thanks so much. Patrick Tidman.