I’m back.
I’d love to just leave it at that but seeing as my hiatus has lasted almost 1.5 years I should really explain who I am and what the hell I’m doing here for anyone who isn’t my mum (hi mum).
Firstly… If you don’t already know my name then how did you get here, fren? What did you even google?! You have wandered too far down that black hole that is the internet. Are you ok?… my URL should help you out with the answer to that first question anyway.
Now the all encompassing “what am I doing here”- without being too existential (because as I write this it’s only midday on a Tuesday after all) here is a brief history:
In the middle of 2013 following a bad break up I started a food blog called Farm to Face, and though it is no longer available on the web for your viewing pleasure it changed my life’s course. It was a mix of recipes and science-based, heavily researched environmental articles written by none other than, you guessed it, moi.
Farm to Face didn’t start off the way it finished up, as things rarely do. I initially just started it because I loved to eat and at the time I didn’t think I was too bad at cooking either. As it grew I realised I wanted to know the true provenance of my food and exactly how it was grown, I started to really care about the environment in a deeper way by connecting with it through food. Fast forward one year and I find myself driving a campervan from Hackney (East London) through to Rome (Italy) with Georgia, my faithful co-writer. We created a 6 part tv series fuelled by a successful kickstarter campaign and some savvy marketing. We actually pulled it off, and for a while Food Network (and I’m told Jamie Oliver) was even interested in buying the series… as you can probably guess, they didn’t, and the series never made the light of day (boooooooo). Not once have I regretted doing that road trip and though I fought hard for it to make it to your screen it wasn’t meant to be. For a while there the thought of getting it aired was all encompassing until eventually I ran out of steam. A couple of years later Georgia and I decided that we were too depleted to go on. The market was becoming saturated and we could never truly pinpoint our essence with the eloquence we wanted. As two young, strong willed women with appetite might, we moved on. Our time writing and researching the blog and series had acted as our spiritual guide: For Georgia she fell in love with the concept of limited resources. An engineer by trade she has now moved into sustainability and works for an innovative horticultural company back in our home country, Australia. For me: I discovered that the landscape that was growing my food wasn’t just feeding me in a basic nutritional way but that I required the environment, and specifically nature to lift my mood and mental resilence. It wasn’t until a complete breakdown that I realised living in the concrete jungle that is London was part of my problem. Fast forward again to now and here I am in Brighton. An ex competitive swimmer I have returned to my second home, the water. I am a cold water sea swimmer now and I swim almost daily. My mental resilience is excellent and I have found my zest for life and writing again.
So what next?
A difficult question to answer that one. I guess I just want to see where my writing will take me. I’m still incredibly passionate about our living environment, and more specifically the ocean, than ever before. I’m still a champion and fan of all things zero waste and plastic free living and, as if it was ever going to be a surprise, I still love to cook and eat. This website won’t solely be about food, even though I do think our food habits are the single biggest way one person can make a difference to climate change. I want to talk about why we need this world (besides the obvious), why we need to care for it, what it gives back to us and how we can take care of it. I want to research the facts so you can grab them all in one place… and hopefully you’ll like my writing enough to want to come back and read about those things from one girl on a mission to change the world’s bad habits and inspire positive change, or from me if I can’t find her.
