I’ve always been elusive (read: frustrating) and shy about sharing my recipes. I’ve got hundreds of DMs asking for them whenever I share my moments from the kitchen on Instagram, and I usually don’t know how to respond because my very long relationship with cooking is as feminine as it can be: non-linear, intuitive, mysterious, unspecific, ever-shapeshifting and erratic in the way all magical things are.
I’m more like a kitchen witch, than a chef. On that note, this book.
I just can’t get myself to write down exact methods, count measurements or create any sort of rigid structure to handhold someone through cooking, because cooking for me has always been deeply instinctual, intuitive space - a creative practice like finger painting with no goal. Just doing whatever comes through.
Of course, some structure comes into play given that I’ve been visiting my kitchen for more than a decade now. But I’ve never been one for giving or receiving exacting instructions.
Lately, I’ve been reflecting: How do I like sharing my cooking? What truly feels like me, what would authentic sharing look like?
Well, it looks like everything that’s the complete opposite of the nice, normal, easy way one is supposed to share cooking in the current world.
I’ve always rebelled against the idea of sharing my recipes in the way that they are most popularly consumed, and I might just continue to do so.
Because, honestly, as someone whose career is enmeshed with her social media presence in a big way, I’m sensitive to the fact that it truly sucks me dry to translate every part of my life into easily consumable content. There are things that I just want to keep for me.
I love sharing my creations, my fashion, my art, textile and design ramblings, my writings on slow living.
But the kitchen has always been my sacred space, my resting place. It’s where I go to replenish my sacral reserve. I cook when I am creatively blocked. I cook when I’m creatively thriving. I cook when I’m in that big ovulation fire. I cook when I need to write something that just isn’t flowing, and suddenly it all gushes out from me. I cook when I want to untangle my thoughts.
Feeling the presh to properly share my recipes - because it is so heavily requested of me since many years - almost felt like an infringement, an invasion even, to make it yet another thing that I post to chronicle on the ether world.
Do you ever notice yourself going into that particular ‘mode’ that all of us digital creators very often slip into, where you’re manufacturing life’s moments instead of living them, because you must? Where you go into ‘record’ mode instead of living mode, and everything starts feeling serious, boring and like work?
Do you sometimes feel bogged down by the pressures of having to record everything beautifully, to the point of missing out on beauty as a lived experience? I sure do
Does it ever hit you how we keep stepping out of the present, to record it, so that we can enjoy the past in the future?
Yeah, I could go on forever, but I’ll just say, I love cooking so much that I’ve protected it fiercely from becoming yet another thing that I’m beholden to my audience for, as much as I love you.
Until the moment that I realised that this reluctance is coming from an unnecessary story of ‘shoulds’ that I simply do not need to carry anymore.
I realised that I don’t need to pressure myself to share recipes in the way I think they should be shared.
You know how I consume recipes myself?
I personally tend to steer clear of cooking videos, lol. I applaud those who do the labour, art and craft of making them. Do I actively rely on them as consumer? Hell no.
I prefer reading a recipe than being told by a video what to do. If I was asked to video record every single thing I cook, I’d feel so disconnected from the process that I just wouldn’t be into it anymore. I might try it someday, of course. But it’s never been my primary method of consumption. I’m a reader, a writer. I don’t want anything interrupting my silence, or my playlists.
My truest self loves to silently - without any banter, chatter or music - read a recipe, shut the thing, and go do what I feel like doing with that loose structure in mind. I LOVE to see pictures of something being made, rather than quick, overstimulating video content that I have an overwhelming amount of access to.
I grew up being told orally narrated recipes from the women in my family over landline calls, and I still make some of these purely from memory, without ever having them written down.
I love recipe reels that provide the dopamine hit of a completed instruction in 30 seconds. Also, I have found them to be only for watching. I’ve never experienced a reel recipe that led to truly delicious food, I feel like they are a sad reduction of the magic of a dish.
I love it when a recipe is a story. That’s the flavour, the spice, the juice.
I love cooking from intuition and instinct. From my womb, rather than my head.
I love meandering about and making a dish the best it can be on probably the 4th try. I love taking away instant gratification, pedantic chronicling and perfectionism from my kitchen space.
I love treating cooking as a sacred practice of devotion, magic, nurture and nourishment. Connecting with an ancestral stream of creative feminine energy.
Yeah, thank god I don’t have to earn money from cooking. Because I’m only about to get weirder.
I made this space on my Substack for stories from my hearth fire (a gas stove, but you know how I romanticize everything). This section of my newsletter is about intuitive cooking, pleasure cooking, sensual cooking, a space for transmitting energy and magick rather than providing reliable, computable ingredient metrics. You will find no how to’s here.
Here, cooking is storytelling, ritual and spell.
Here, the kitchen is my sacred space. The hearth is the heart of the home. And she who rules the hearth, rules the home ;)
I spend my Monday (ruled by the moon, a day of mother energy) meal prepping, cooking more than any other day, and meditating through crafting nourishment for my home.
I want to share here silent, soft tales from my kitchen that may sometimes feel like an eccentric crone narrating her recipes to you. I am far, far away from a slick YouTube chef with perfect time stamps and steps. Expect frequent tangents, romanticizing, fantasizing and deliciously feminine mystery instead.
I seek to gain nothing but connection, pleasure and joy from cooking - and consequently, this space.
So forgive me for taking away all logic, rationality, outcomes and takeaways, this may look like a cooking blog but it’s only here to serve vibes and kitchen craft as a ritualistic enjoyment. I may often share the longest, most scenic route to making something. I may never share anything easy and organized. I may often talk about the slowest, most delicious, most sensual way of preparing tomatoes for a salad rather than the quickest hack to get dinner on the table. I may seem like a resistance to all the normal ways of being in the kitchen. I may take immense pride, joy and sexiness from being a woman in the kitchen. I may reclaim being there as the most empowering, powerful creative role of my home and flip the tired old stereotype. I may often behave akin to a hag living within an enchanted tree stump, speaking in trickster tales instead of how many spoons it took exactly to make something. You’ve been warned. Enjoy.
It is my intention to keep this particular section about cooking a space that’s free, open and available to all who may stumble by my enchanted tree stump home. The rest of my shares on circle dance around a bonfire are more secretive, I write stories from my slow living journey and life as a creative that are protected behind a paywall given their intimacy, depth and vulnerability. If you’re enjoying my writing, I’d love for you to express your support by becoming a paid subscriber (the price of buying me a cute iced coffee) to unlock deeper shares for you to dive into and to empower me to always be able to create time, space and energy to keep growing this space.