It was Christmas 2013. Huw and Lou Mainwaring were showing off their 5-month-old boy, Maxen, to Lou’s family in New Zealand when they discovered a “Glow” in both of Maxen’s eyes. Huw, looked online for “white eye,” “cats eyes” and the images that came up seemed identical to what we were seeing in Maxen’s eyes. Then Huw found the Know The Glow® website and felt almost certain that their little boy had Retinoblastoma.
They rushed back home to L.A., where Maxen was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma in both his eyes and began treatment immediately. “Our first month of chemo was pretty tough, so we decided that I should take a career break to care for Maxen until he was stable,” said Huw.
Huw took this opportunity to create Kitchen Daddy. Before Maxen’s diagnosis, Huw spent his career working in the most exciting areas of the food industry, from prestigious restaurants to fine food markets and, more recently, as a food innovation and product development expert for international retailers.
Kitchen Daddy to shares weekly recipes and how-to videos showing parents how to make easy, healthy recipes for their families. “I have always loved teaching people how to cook, so instead of twiddling my thumbs (or cleaning the house) whilst Maxen slept, I started making cooking videos for YouTube and the response has been amazing,” Huw said.
Huw understands what it is like to have a hectic schedule and uses this knowledge to relate to other families by making cooking as stress-free as possible. “Being a stay-at-home dad I understand how life gets in the way of cooking. So to help people create family meals, my videos are quick and simple to understand and the recipes are delicious and easy to make at home,” said Huw.
Underlying his desire to help people cook, there is a second message that Huw is desperate to spread. “What shocks me the most is that 80 percent of childhood blindness is preventable. And the easiest way of preventing it is for parents to Know the Glow. We look back at photos of Maxen when he was born, and you can see the yellow ‘Glow’ in his eyes even then, instead of red eye, from the camera flash, and I can’t believe we had no idea that was cancer,” said Huw.
Kitchen Daddy has allowed Huw to create a platform that can help him spread “Glow” awareness on a larger scale. “With social media anything is possible, but the key to success is creating awesome content that people are actually interested in. I’m sticking with what I know, which is cooking, and now that I have found a formula for producing great content, I want to collaborate with as many You Tubers and people across the food industry as possible and start sharing the Know the Glow message. My aim is for us to be the last generation NOT to Know the Glow.”
Make sure to check out Huw’s Kitchen Daddy website for his amazing recipes!