Inspired by "Saturday night projects" from my long admired restaurant crush Noma, my good friend Tracey and I have started our own creative styling project. We have set ourselves the goal of once a week creating a dish to make and style together - this in order to foster creativity, solidify a style and learn in a safe environment (I'm sure there'll be many failed attempts!). Aside from me also getting to play with the angle of my images, I hope it will bring me back to the kitchen and rekindle the fire of doing what I most love. The year and half since I left a corporate career to pursue my passions of working with organic plant-based food, has not only taken me down a whirlwind path of photography but more recently the unknown and unstable existence as well as other things, resulted in me losing all the passion inside of me and left me feeling constantly hopeless and very scared of life. After finally seeking help with the encouragement from dear friends, I realise that these feelings were not normal. Nor that my tearful disposition, lethargy and overwhelming worrying thoughts were just "me", but that I have for a long while been quite unwell. Whilst energy came from working with my beloved clients, when those projects were done I would slump without the energy or fire to pursue personal work such as this. Today however I do feel good - actually in a way I've only known once before. This ongoing project therefore, has a role to play in keeping myself structured and well. Life really is a precious but funny thing - having been given the greatest gift to pursue doing what I love, this freedom somehow resulted in all that I love evaporating and leaving in it's wake sadness and fear. But anyhow - watch this space for the continuation of creative styling projects, recipe development and the rekindling of that flame. I'll be heading back to Sweden soon which gives me a big motivation to keep things rolling till I go. Till next time xo
*Tracey made this rice pudding using Storm and India Tea Sisters coconut chai tea as an infusion. We topped with organic coconut milk, rice malt syrup, Ceres organics nut butter, almonds, coconut chips, Blue Frog orange syrup and seasonal pears.