About Us
We are your kitchen Inspiration
The Cooks Collective is a trusted resource of inspiration for your home kitchen. Find new ideas, watch entertaining tutorial videos, listen to thought-provoking expert conversations and cook wonderful recipes to your hearts (and appetites) content.
We are more than just another recipe website
Not just another recipe website, we have been teaching for over 20 years at our cooking school in Perth Western Australia. With well over 75,000 people having come through our kitchen doors since 1997 we’ll guarantee with our expert guidance you’ll love cooking more, find it becomes easier and easier and broaden your home culinary skills to take you to the heights you’ve always dreamed of.
We are all about having fun in the kitchen
The Cooks Collective founder, qualified chef and teacher Tracey Cotterell has never-ending energy for cooking and you’ll laugh your way through her demonstration videos with her quirky sense of humour. She is serious about cooking, but doesn’t take cooking too seriously!
She says “I wanted to reach more people and hopefully inject some fun into something we have to do every day. Using a broad range of easily available ingredients you can increase diversity in your diet with our trusted cooking school recipes, remove the guesswork out of trying to make dishes taste good by learning about flavour, and the techniques on the videos will guide you through the cooking process.”
We are suitable for everyone
The Cooks Collective is an easy to use resource with search functions, filters and a favourites area so you can always find what you are looking for. You’ll even learn about No-Nonsense Nutrition from Hayley. Many recipes are suited to a vegetarian diet so no-one misses out on enjoying our tasty food.
We are strong believers that cooking will improve your life
The Cooks Collective team are firm believers that cooking improves life, mentally and physically. Let’s keep this basic human pleasure as part of our daily routine, share in fresh seasonal produce and great conversations. Enjoying the company of loved-ones over a good meal will bring a smile to your face – every time.
Meet The Team
Tracey Cotterell
FOUNDER, MANAGING DIRECTOR AND TEACHER
TECH DIP HOTEL CATERING AND INSTITUTIONAL MANAGEMENT
Tracey has been in the food industry since completing her tertiary education in 1982 in the UK. She worked for an outside catering company in London, then joined her parents in rural West Sussex running the kitchens of a busy country inn.
Meeting and marrying West Australian farmer-boy Anthony in 1990, Tracey initially worked for Mustard Catering in Fremantle where she enjoyed a senior role in menu development. She then went on to work for one of Perth’s leading law firms as their catering co-ordinator and later took a position with Kate Lamont’s team. .
Establishing Matters of Taste Cooking School in 1997 Tracey says “After running this business for so many years, it seemed a natural progression to offer online classes, so anyone, anywhere could access our teaching and beautiful recipes.” .
Tracey is serious about cooking but doesn’t take cooking too seriously. She presents with her special style of humour and is known for making cooking fun and achievable. She has a vast knowledge of food and cooking and is delighted to be able to inspire and teach Cooks Collective members to realise their potential. .
Anthony Cotterell
OPERATIONS MANAGER, CAMERAMAN AND FCO.
Born in NZ, Anthony grew up in the rural south west of WA. Little did he know that his future was in the big smoke running a very different type of business to a sheep farm. Anthony and Tracey married in 1990. .
Having developed a successful career in sales since leaving Kojonup over 2 decades ago, joining MoT in 2016 Anthony is a welcome addition to the team and brings a broad range of skill-sets with him. As well as being responsible for the company’s operations, he plans and maintains the financial and analytical aspect of the business. Anthony is also our personal cameraman and editor for all in-house video productions. .
“The most challenging aspect of my position,” Anthony says with a twinkle in his eye “is keeping Tracey in-check”. Let’s wish him well with his mission.
“Over the years Anthony’s appreciation and understanding of food has developed. With his culinary intuition when taste-testing, he can predict which of our recipes will be a hit with home cooks. He has an exceptional set of taste buds!”
Tracey Cotterell
Bryonie Carter
TEACHER, KITCHEN MANAGER
CERT III COMMERCIAL COOKERY
Since 2014 Bryonie’s role has expanded from running Matters of Taste’s busy school kitchen and teaching in live classes to appearing on The Cooks Collective videos.
Almost a decade ago, when learning she was to become a mother and with her son’s future in mind, Bryonie made necessary changes to her lifestyle which included research into disease prevention. A major part of her holistic approach was food and diet, so to gain a solid foundation she completed a Commercial Cookery Course.
Bry now gets to combine her love and talent for cooking, with her many years of front of house experience and her need to get things organised! She loves inspiring people on a day to day basis to cook well for themselves.
The girls, Bryonie and Tracey are very different personalities and focussing on their strengths they create balance which is revealed in The Cooks Collective video tutorials and it’s often very funny! Bry maintains a smooth-running operation without which, the ‘formation’ of this online offering would not be possible.
“I believe it’s imperative to know how to cook food from scratch. If we’re aware of what’s in the food we eat and where our food comes from, this essential skill enables all of us to choose our own eating habits and ultimately our health.”
Bryonie Carter
Hayley Cotterell
GUEST HOST, RECIPE ADVISOR
From a young age Hayley has been surrounded by food and cooking. Those around her have assumed that she would follow her Mums footsteps, and in a way she has!
Hayley studies BSc Nutrition and Food Science at Curtin University. She hopes to continue on with her studies by completing her Masters of Dietetics.
She’s extremely passionate about ensuring the public are given straight-forward, accurate and easy to understand information about healthy eating. One day she would love to work with pregnant women and early childhood.
On the Cooks Collective, Hayley presents nutrition-based recipes with Tracey, explaining the benefits of each dish as well as common misconceptions and contemporary trends in the health world.
