It Started With Five Women Around a Table

Warmth & Wellness didn’t begin with a business plan nor did it have a name.

It began with a vision.

Kaytee had this image in her mind of women sitting around a dining table — sharing nourishing food, talking openly and feeling completely at ease. She created a space that felt warm, cosy and welcoming long before anyone had even agreed to come.

When she shared the idea with me, something in me immediately resonated.

At that time, I had recently qualified as a Gut Health Nutrition Coach. I was passionate about food and how it supports the body, but I didn’t want to stand in front of women and tell them what they should or shouldn’t eat. That never felt aligned.

What I wanted was to show women that cooking could be simple, creative and joyful. That anyone could experiment with food, try new recipes and feel good about what they were making.

I’ve never been a trained chef. I’m simply a woman who loves cooking — especially when something new works out and turns out better than expected. That feeling of creativity excites me.

Around the same time, I realised I wanted to reconnect with something I had lost.

When my children were younger, I loved arts and crafts. I would spend hours making things with my hands. As life became busier, all of that was packed away. I hadn’t realised how much I missed that sense of creativity and grounding.

Cooking became part of that return to myself.

So when the idea of a supper club came up, it felt like something clicked.

Not just professionally — but personally.

We weren’t trying to build a business. We were responding to something we both felt was missing.

A space for women to simply be themselves.

Not mothers.

Not wives.

Not all the roles we carry through the week.

Just women.

We put a simple message out into Facebook groups and WhatsApp chats, inviting a handful of women to come to Kaytee’s home, share homemade food and spend a few hours together.

We had no idea what would happen.

Four women said yes.

Looking back, that number feels small.

At the time, it felt huge.

These were women we didn’t know, willing to step into someone’s home and sit around a table together.

We welcomed them in, offered a warm cup of herbal tea, made soup, baked focaccia and prepared simple homemade dishes. One woman brought her own food because of dietary needs, and we adapted as best we could.

There was no perfect plan.

Just openness.

We offered the evening as a donation-based gathering, placing a simple pot on the kitchen worktop.

When the evening ended, we counted what had been given.

But it wasn’t the money that stayed with us.

It was the feeling.

Something had shifted.

Women who had arrived as strangers had shared food, conversation and something much harder to name — a sense of belonging.

Because at the heart of it, that is what we are all really looking for.

To belong.

To feel part of something.

And I think the older you get, the more you realise how deeply you still need that — but in a different way than before.

Not loud friendship groups or constant social noise.

But quieter connections.

Relationships that ebb and flow.

Connections that give and take naturally, without force or expectation.

The kind of connection where you can not see someone for weeks or months and still feel instantly at ease when you sit back down together.

We realised we hadn’t just hosted an evening.

We had created a space.

And we had no idea yet how far that would go.

We hadn’t planned what would come next.

But something in both of us knew it wasn’t finished.

We looked at our diaries and set another date.

Then we shared it again — in Facebook groups, WhatsApp chats and through friends and family.

And once more, we opened the door and waited to see who would arrive.