Ask Yourself Kindly: What Do You Need?

I have started doing things a little differently and so far my tummy feels very light and happy. If you’ve talked to me about my eating habits, you’ll know that I don’t like to label them. This is because I personally find living life, gladdening hearts, and making memories just as important as saving the planet and being healthy. What I’m trying to say is, if my new Japanese friend invites me over with utmost glee and sits me down with a big plate of lovingly homemade pork yakitori, well, I’m not going to break her heart and request broccoli. Anyways, I have finally started listening to the digestion experts by eating fruit first thing, on an empty stomach, in the morning. This has something to do with fruit often “rotting” in the stomach and thus causing poor-digestion and stomach-bloating. So, I eat my little bowl of fruit… I wait 15 to 20 minutes then I eat my muesli. Now, to complicate things even further… I’ve gone gluten-free. Of course, becoming gluten-free isn’t for everybody but as I said, so far, my tummy feels very light and happy. Surprisingly, it’s been very easy. Almost everywhere have gluten-free options and at home, all I’ve had to change is my bread and muesli. Bread I bought from the supermarket – super easy. And muesli, I swapped the oats in my homemade recipe to buckwheat puffs. So I dry toast nuts, seeds, honey, coconut oil and cinnamon in a frying pan and once cool, mix with dried fruit and buckwheat puffs (basically popcorn for breakfast – can’t complain). Next I want to try quinoa puffs and buckwheat groats. I will keep you updated anyhow.

While you work from an office… (hehe).
Vanilla bean and gooseberries with rye crumble, blueberry, Greek yoghurt and mint and cherry, plum and Earl Grey, strawberry and rhubarb, coconut and passionfruit, coconut and dark chocolate. Mandy you a Genius! #UtopiaIce

Sea salt caramel and popcorn ice-cream. Heaven is real and it comes in a tub. Save me.

Easy snack idea for the 19 Day Bahai Feast – though I had trouble sticking the feta through the bamboo sticks without them falling apart so my momma suggested I end with the feta by simply pricking it a teeny tiny bit only. 
Physical feasting on snacks generously brought by friends after some serious soul-food! In the words of Abdu’l-Bahá, “My heart is in a constant state of thanksgiving.”

three truths behind blogging

Yesterday marked my blog’s one year anniversary. One year may not seem a long time but when thought about as 365 posts, each approximately 500+ words, to me, it seems like an eternity of work.

By now, we should all be aware of the true workings of social networks such as Instagram and Facebook. If not, let me remind you that these sites only exhibit snippets of an individual’s life. Snippets that are carefully selected and often manipulated, too . By no means are  your “friend’s” posts an all-encompassing representation of their life. After some reflecting on the year that has been, I’ve come to realise that most blogging is, if not the same, worse.

I’ll explain in points.

1.Edited photos.


Suddenly my lunch is better than yours.

2.Followers
Don’t get me wrong, the only reason I do this thing is for likes and followers (yes it’s a sad sad world) but seriously, when one has acquired a following one simply cannot disappoint. So, sometimes I post because I have to. This especially applies to recipes and food. Obviously I love food, I accidently ate the whole thing and all but sometimes I hate food too. Just like spending too much time with a certain someone can drive you up the wall, so can continuously discussing food or fashion or motherhood.

3.Empathy
I don’t know about you but the first thing I learnt about story-telling was the importance of having a likeable character. Cinderella, Alice, Tintin, all likeable. Meaning, no blogger is going to gain/keep a readership by being cynical. “I baked this sugar-free chocolate cake for my daughter’s third birthday which was an absolute joy” is much nicer than “I hate birthdays, they suck out the very last ounce of energy left in my tired soul because no-one, including my husband helps out and I end up having to do everything on my own.”

So, a lot of blogging, especially professional ones (I’m thinking food, travel and fashion) is fabricated. This, I know, from my own first-hand amateur experience and a quick scroll through the internet.  So why am I bagging my own vocation? I  guess it has something to do with honesty and a sense of obligation. So what does that mean for iaccidentlyatethewholething this coming year? Well, apart from the ripening of the ever so awaited Japanese figs and persimmons, God willing; a little more soul, a little more purpose.