Crave Marinades - WOW Award

Preston Entrepreneur Recieves #Wow Award From Jacqueline Gold CBE

On August 6th, Karen Riley from Ashton, was recognised by British businesswoman, Jacqueline Gold CBE, for her success as a female entrepreneur, and awarded with a prestigious #WOW badge.

Karen was selected by Jacqueline after she entered ‘Women on Wednesday’ - a competition launched by Jacqueline in 2011 to celebrate the growing number of UK female entrepreneurs and businesswomen.

Women on Wednesday (#WOW) takes place every week and is run through Jacqueline’s Twitter and Instagram page. When selecting the winner, Jacqueline looks for a business that is interesting, that has strong brand values and that she thinks has the potential to grow and succeed in their industry. She looks for quality products and services, well designed websites and entrepreneurs who demonstrate good business acumen and who have spotted a gap in the market that meets the consumer’s needs.

Jacqueline Gold says: “Karen has had a passion for cooking her whole life, particularly when it came to using spices. This led to the creation of Crave Marinades a healthy low fat, low sugar, and plant based spice blend. Karen will be a great addition to the WOW community, and I can’t wait to try her marinade!”

For me, #WOW is all about inspiring and celebrating female entrepreneurs. My vision is for women in the UK to come together, celebrate their strengths, skills and fantastic businesses, and do all that they can to inspire other women to realise their potential.

The WOW community is a fantastic network which offers female entrepreneurs the opportunity to share advice, support each other, trade and most importantly celebrate their successes!”

For more information about Crave Marinades, please visit: www.cravemarinades.com

For more information about Women on Wednesday, please visit: www.jacgueline old.com/wow/wowabout/

Denise Mullen is a journalist, columnist, writer and entrepreneur.

AND SAY ‘AAAAAAHHHH’

My husband, Johnny ‘The Mongoose’ France returned from a foreshortened ‘Dads n Dogs’ climbing trip last weekend, due to adverse conditions. There’s a national shortage of dental appointments in the UK. If you don’t want to grin and bear it (ouchy root and all), then avoid toffees, crackling or anything else likely to encourage bad behaviour from any fillings you may be harbouring back there. I mention this because a friend of my husband has just gone through the whole trauma of being unable to get an appointment. He had bitten into an Ill-advised, yet seemingly inoffensive crumpet, actually, and goodbye filling. Must have been those little suction pockets that crumpets have, combined with a slathering of butter. A molar that simply wasn’t trying hard enough took its eye off the job in hand. Probably training for clear and present danger. Complacency. It meant that strict avoidance and suspicion of more credible adversaries, such as a Werther’s Original or that yellow round one always left at the bottom of the Quality Street tin, left the door open for a ninja crumpet. To late. The snack-sniper slipped through the net… and it was over. Whatever the cause, the molars weren’t on point, and that left him in a pickle. Eight phone calls later and he was following the advice of a dental receptionist (the only advice available mind, dentists far too busy) to go to his nearest pharmacy and buy a pack of ‘Toofy Pegs’. Truth be known he kept calling them ‘Dolly Pegs’ - which is a collective for wooden clothes pegs for hanging out the washing (old school) – but we worked it out. He was running out of time, as they were about to board the plane for Cyprus, so the Toofy Pegs were stuffed into carry-on luggage and his mouth kept largely shut until they arrived at their accommodation in resort. I think there are three kinds of instructions-readers. 1. Read them all through once, then follow closely step by step 2. Read each step and follow through as instructed as you progress without reading through prior 3. Just wing it James is a type two. In common with some exceptionally smart, often scientifically minded people, his common-sense gene has been supressed to make room for the huge intellect and smugness during any kind of pub quiz. We deploy him offensively in those kinds of situations. Because he knows all the answers to everyone’s questions, and can’t help himself shouting them out, we put him on someone else’s team. That means we have room for another team member, but we still have the benefit of all the answers James offers from an opposing team. And the team he’s on get very ticked off (fun!) But back to the teeth of the matter. So he breaks open the packaging and follows along with the steps, pushing the Toofy Peg thingy in the cavity then reading the next step. The next step says that you have to keep the temporary filling completely dry for a few minutes. He goes into a blind panic. Mouth wide open and sprinting about the apartment he’s doing muffled shouting at his kids. What he’s trying to yell is ‘Where is the hair dryer??’ Yes, that was his plan. Only despite also deploying the hand gesticulations for ‘hair dryer’ and roaring ‘Waaas ug Aaaa Uyer??’ to various relatives, he was getting nowhere. Wife next. To be fair, she just rolled her eyes and walked away. But bless her, she did come back, and she did have the hair dryer in hand. Pouring a refreshing glass of white wine, she entertained herself, from a sun lounger on the patio – a safe distance - watching her husband’s cheeks blowing out like an angry squirrel in a wind tunnel for a good ten minutes. It was a while before James could speak. His tongue was the colour of Chorizo and twice as dry, and his cheeks were a ruddy contrast to his Glasgow tan (Glasgow Tan: think milk bottles on the step on the morning of Hogmanay). The terrific news is the temporary filling is still functioning well. Baked in as it is. We’re just thankful the apartment wasn’t so fancy it had one of those little blow torches for crunching up the top of a crème Brule. The ladies in the party had brought hair straighteners, which to be fair, may also have been fair game, but wisely kept that option concealed during the great hairdryer hunt of ’22.

By Denise Mullen

Pictured: Dolly (Not Toofy) Pegs