Sunday Roast 1st March #weeklyfoodnews

This week has been manically busy but awesome. I'm back in Oxford and have started a wonderful but hectic job at a local delicatessen. Perhaps the best news is that the deli has started serving millet (!!!!!). Ah my god this literally made my year so far. Conversations with customers go something like this:

Customer: "Hi, I'd like a salad selection please. Is that quinoa? 

Me: "Oh...that's not quinoa. That is anything but quinoa. Quinoa is dogshit compared to this miraculous grain. This is millet. Did you know I did my Masters on millet? No? Well, let me tell you a few facts about millet: it is gluten free, iron rich, it is full of calcium and folic acid, and best of all it is versatile and easily integrated into every single meal. Porridge, beer, soups, salads, casseroles, biscuits... Oh god, millet is perhaps the best thing since sliced bread. In fact, you can make bread out of millet!"

I truly believe they appreciate this level of customer service.

I've also realised that I don't hide my emotive reaction to people's salad choices very well. There's this young student who now just gives me his plate and makes me create a meal for him instead, lest I judge his flavour combinations. He hasn't come in at all this week...I wonder why...

In other exciting news, I have moved into a new house. Slowly but surely, I am en route to becoming a hipster 'foodie'. It started with a denim shirt and bobble hat, increasingly documenting my food choices via Instagram, and now...I live in in Oxford's best location for local food markets, artisan stores, live gigs and innovative cocktail bars. My new house also has a fantastic kitchen, so prepare yourself for more Instagrams than ever before.

Right, enough 'milling' over my week, let's get onto our Sunday Roast.

Recipe

Salted Tahini Avocado Toast by Maureen Abood (Rose Water & Lemon Blossoms)

Source: maureenabood.com

My absolute favourite brunch is avocado on toast. However, over the years, I have had my fair share of bad avocados on toast. The worst was at a 'high end' restaurant in London where it literally was a smear of greeny-brown mush on half a slice of toast. Others have been much more successful: my favourite so far is at New Zealand Coffee shop in Bow. Omg it's so tasty I nearly licked the plate. 

In my quest for the absolute perfect avocado on toast, I tried out this recipe... it is heaven. Literal, creamy heaven. I will gloss over the fact that both avocados and tahini are aphrodisiacs (I ate it alone watching Game of Thrones), and simply urge you all to try it. 

The ingredients are as follows (I will leave the prep to you, it's pretty self-explanatory):

• Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 an avocado, sliced. 
• 1 slice toast (I had it on seeded wholemeal toast)
• Spoonful of tahini
• Salt and chilli flakes (optional)
• Sesame seeds (to make it look pretty and add crunch) 

Blog

I Am A Food Blog by Stephanie Le.

Introducing Stephanie Le. Her recipes are delicious, unique and encourage a fusion of different cuisines from Asian, Italian to American. Oh, and she dreams about Taylor Swift (thank god, there's more than one of us), takes amazing photos and is hilarious. My favourite opening line was on a post about sesame chicken thighs:

"Because I'm all about those thighs, 'bout those thighs, 'bout those thighs". 

Sesame chicken thighs, recipe found here

Not only do we all have that song in our heads, but we should also have a smile on our faces; a sign of a great food blog.

I must admit I haven't cooked anything from her blog yet, but just looking at the photos makes me hungry. In the next few weeks, I will definitely be cooking several of Stephanie's recipes, but my presentation and photography skills may lack somewhat. My £40 Nokia doesn't really do lighting/focus/zoom/selfies/anything a functioning camera phone should do...

Journal

Ten Things You Should Know About Soil, by The Sustainable Food Trust 

Yes, this is article rather than an academic journal, but it draws from various studies and is well worth this spot in the Sunday Roast. Each year, the UN has an International Year dedicated to a particular theme in international development. 2015 is the International Year of Soil. 

Source: http://www.co.nrcs.usda.gov

Soil is the most underrated resource: over 95% of our food comes from the top layer of soil. We determine our past climates through soil analysis, and it holds a multitude of compounds and organisms that are essential for the functioning of our future terrestrial and atmospheric systems too. We are utterly reliant on this finite resource, yet many just see it as mud or dirt. 

I made the stupid mistake of accidentally calling soil 'mud' at a farming conference: I will never forget the gasp then shocked silence as the eyes of a dozen farmers bored into my skull. No one should make this mistake, and everyone should read the above article just to realise why. 

News

Sustainable Restaurant Association wants clear consciences as well as clean plates when it comes to food, by The Independent 

There has been a huge amount of emphasis on food waste in the past year, and rightly so: the UN published a report stating that we waste over 1.3 billion tonnes of food each year. 

But, even if it arrives on our plates, food can also be wasted on us if we do not appreciate it: the fact we have access to nutritious food three times a day, can share food with families and friends, and eat a diversity of meals at restaurants and home. This should never be taken for granted.

Fiesole, Italy: Perhaps the best meal of my life - sourcing, environment and service all 10/10 

Ensuring that the efforts of people at each stage of the food is not wasted is also of paramount importance: the farmers, drivers, traders, retailers, chefs, friends and family, waiters and waitresses. The Sustainable Restaurant Association emphasises this and advocates building a stronger link between sourcing, environment and society. This includes restaurants encouraging cookery classes for children, treating their staff in an ethical and respectful way, encouraging consumer knowledge of provenance, promoting zero waste campaigns... 

Next time you go out to eat, try and search for a restaurant within the Sustainable Restaurant Association. If not possible, just don't let your food and the people and environment behind it go to waste. 

Inspiration

One hundred and one facts that make us hopeful about the future of food, by Food Tank. 

The Food Tank is my ultimate favourite website when it comes to food and agriculture news. I had the pleasure of meeting Ellen Gustafon at an event a few years back, and was utterly inspired by the innovative and passionate way she spoke about the potential of 'true cost accounting' as a means to move away from an unsustainable era of cheap, fast food. This list of 101 hopeful facts is testament to this passion, along with every other article on Food Tank. 

Hope for the future of food.
Source: foodtank.com

It's well worth a read and the website is well worth an explore: there is something for everyone, from videos to book recommendations. With such doom and gloom in the media about climate, food and hunger, this should fill you with hope and power to act.  

Until next week! 

x

Edible Insects: The 'How to' of marketing grubs

When it comes to food trends, a huge amount can change in a year. In late 2013, I wrote a blog outlining my thoughts on entomophagy, questioning how insects can be incorporated into Western diets in a way that supports rather than undermines the traditional landscapes knowledge networks and food cultures that entomophagy emerged from in the first place (namely Asia, Africa and parts of Central and South America).

Some of this hesitancy to see entomophagy as a panacea is still lingering in my mind, however it is absolutely startling to see how - in the space of just over a year - eating insects has gone from a predominantly rhetorical focus of UN FAO reports to one of the up and coming food trends in the West.

I thought I should do some research into how grubs have, and continue to be, marketed in the West. The first step is...

Removing the taboo

In January, I wrote an article for the Sustainable Food Trust on revolting food traditions. Emotions play a key role in what we eat, with revulsion or disgust often leading to avoidance of certain foods. However, behind the culinary traditions that are deemed revolting is a story involving rich heritage, ecology and tradition. Preserving and even promoting the diversity of these 'revolting' foods and their stories is of paramount importance, and eating insects is one example of this. 

Particularly in the civil society and research world, these stories are increasingly being documented. For example, the University of Wageningen, Noma's Nordic Food Lab and numerous other research institutes are doing extensive research on edible insects from their farming to their consumption. Diverse case studies from around the world are being collected and questions on health and safety, land use change and utilising insects as a source of animal feed are all being posed.

Source: whyfiles.org

Insects as a health food 

Another key area of research is consumer attitude towards grubs and how to overcome any barrier towards adoption of entomophagy in the West. One successful way is to use pre-existing values associated with health and well-being.

For example, insects are high in protein and low in fat. As UN FAO report states:

"Insects have a high food conversion rate. e.g. crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, twice less than pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein". 

This is combined with a high level of sustainability in production, increasing the health of our ecosystem services too. For example, farming insects has a dramatically lower impact on carbon footprints, land and water use compared to other protein sources such as livestock. On the topic of feed, insects can also be used as an energy-rich animal feed, reducing the demand for corn and soy as human-edible proteins fed to livestock.

Source: foodrepublic.com

Because of this, the benefits of eating insects has been marketed in line with the growing debate on the role of meat in sustainable, healthy diets. Western governments and policy-makers are encouraging consumers to reduce their intake of grain-fed red meats. Not only is this better for our bodies, mitigating the prevalence of obesity and diet-related disease, but also for our environments and climate.

Promoting a 'global' diet 

Another factor that has helped promote entomophagy is marketing it as a global experience. It's like going to the local restaurant and ordering an Indian or Chinese takeaway, but just a whole lot more exciting.

For example, Thailand Unique is just one online store where you can buy a range of products - including scorpion vodka and canned bugs - that are made from insects caught by 'expert hunters' or reared on insect farms around the world. Incorporating bugs with alcohol seems to be a trend in itself: innovative wine merchant Laithwaites have even created an edible insect and matching wine guide, suggesting exotic combinations such as zebra tarantula with Chardonnay and sago worms with Shiraz.

My only hesitation is that this has to be a long-term diet shift, complementing and even catalysing a sustained shift in consumer mindsets. In other words, eating insects cannot be simply a quirky short-term fad if it really wants to live up to it being a part of fixing our broken food and agricultural system. Thankfully, this is being recognised. Commenting on Wahaca's recent incorporation of grasshoppers into the Mexican-themed menu:

"Rather than having the insects eaten by diners as a dare or as a gimmick amongst the tacos or quesadillas, marketing manager Oli Ingham said they wanted to raise the issue of sustainability in food production" Guardian article (2015)

Wahaca's grasshopper dips
Source: wahaca.co.uk

Like with hiding vegetables in children's meals, restaurants and chefs are gradually incorporating insects into common recipes (not just vodka and confectionary...): using grasshopper flour rather than wheat to make bread, bug burgers and burritos, muffins from crickets... As Adam Holcroft, the owner of the UK's first ever insect restaurant states: this helps to normalise insects as a part of our everyday diet. Until we're not disgusted by the sight of a deep-fried tarantula or ant egg soup - two delicacies of South-East Asia - this incremental removal of taboo and increase in status is at least a step in the right direction.

On this optimistic note, I am intent to combine all this preaching with some practice of my own... So, next blog will be all about my own culinary exploration of insects, ranging from wasps to hornet wine.

Until next time...! 

Sunday Roast #weeklyfoodnews

In light of all the fantastic information and innovation emerging on the topic of sustainable food and agriculture, I thought I should start up a 'Sunday Roast' series. This Sunday Roast is not your typical 'meat and two veg' meal. Instead, it consists of five different courses: a recipe, blog, academic journal, news article and an inspirational piece all on the topics of food, sustainability and agriculture.

So, sit down, unbutton those jeans and tuck in to your Sunday Roast. If you're feeling extra greedy and have a specific article suggestion or additional theme, please comment!

Recipe 

Millet cakes with carrots and spinach by Love and Lemons

I can almost see the heads of my family and friends being thrown back. After writing 12,000 words on millet diversity for my MA and nearly killing my friend with some inedible millet chapattis, why oh why return to the millet obsession? But, after a year out, I couldn't stay away any longer... Millet's back and better than ever. 

Move over quinoa: as a gluten free and protein-rich alternative to rice and wheat, millet is predicted to be a food trend of 2015. These millet cakes can be vegan if no egg is added as a binder, and can be either baked or fried. They are also high in iron, potassium and calcium. 

This recipe is from the food blog Love and Lemons, originally written in The Complete American Cookbook. I have converted cups to grams as best as I can:

Ingredients: 

• 128g millet (usually pearl or finger millet)
• 250g water
• salt and pepper
• 3 tsp vegetable/olive oil
• 1 shallot (minced)
• 770g baby spinach (roughly chopped)
• 2 carrots (washed, shredded)
• 2 garlic cloves (minced)
• 2 tsp curry powder 
• 30g plain yoghurt (or 40ml almond milk)
• 1 large egg (optional if vegan)
• 2 tbsp minced coriander (you can use the stalks!)

Instructions:

• Line baking sheet with baking paper
• Combine millet, water and 1/2 tsp of salt in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to low once simmering and cover until grains are tender and liquid is absorbed. This should be approx 20 min. 
• Take off heat and let the millet sit (like with cous cous) for 10 minutes
• Transfer to large bowl
• Heat oil in a non-stick pan and cook the shallots until translucent and softened. 
• Stir in the spinach, carrots and cook until the spinach is wilted. Approx 2 minutes. 
• Stir in the minced garlic, curry powder, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/4 tsp pepper and cook for another 30 seconds. 
• Transfer to the bowl with the millet. 
• Stir the yoghurt, egg (optional) and coriander into the mixture until combined. 
• Divide into 8 equal portions and create compact cakes. Place onto the baking sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes until firm. 
• Heat oven to 100 degrees C. 
• Heat oil in a pan and fry the cakes until a deep golden brown (make sure the oil has heated up first before putting them on). This should take 10-15 minutes, turning half way through. You can bake/grill in the oven instead at approx 180 C, keep an eye on them!
• Transfer cakes back onto the baking sheet and keep warm in the oven until served. 

Millet is a neutral tasting grain. Love and Lemons' blog uses chilli flakes and lemon, but you could also add spices such as cumin and coriander to give a South Asian theme, or some harissa paste and smoked paprika for a more Moroccan feel! 

Source: Love and Lemons

Blog

The Thinking Kitchen by Annie Zimmerman 

Check out this fantastic blog by Annie Zimmerman, a Masters student at Oxford University. I have already written about Annie: she is the lovely lady who wrote me a letter when my blog was hacked, and I thought I should continue saying thank you by promoting her inspirational words and work. 

The Thinking Kitchen adopts a unique approach to food blogging: it focuses on the psychology behind food. How and what we consume is intimately connected to how and what we think and feel. I for one cannot emphasise how important this is: having had control issues with food in the past, linked to stress and trauma, it is imperative to understand the links between emotions/psychology and our relationship with food. After all, it's not called your 'gut feeling' for nothing... 

Annie advocates healthy and nutritious eating for a healthy mindset, combining 'clean' ingredients into delicious meals to help boost our moods and bodily health. Oh, and she has fantastic photos too - the sign of a great food blog :) 

Annie's banana bread: good for your body and mind
Source: The Thinking Kitchen

Journal 

Global diets link environmental sustainability and human health, Nature

This article is from late 2014 but it is a must-read. The authors study Mediterranean, pescetarian and vegetarian diets and their impacts on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and non-communicable diseases such as obesity and diabetes. The conclusion?

"Figures showing the relative impacts of the Mediterranean, vegetarian and pescetarian diets in terms of per capita GHG emissions, global GHG emissions, contribution to changes in cropland, and changes in cropland reduction find these dietary types have much lower impacts than business as usual dietary patterns" (Source: FCRN)

Impact of our diets (business as usual = income dependent 2050) on health and environment. Source: FCRN

'Business as usual' dietary patterns mean high meat, dairy and processed food consumption (i.e. a Western, mainly UK/US diet). The study comes at a crucial time: we have the power to choose what we eat, and this article shows just how pivotal this choice is in determining our future environment, economy and bodies. This food should be cheaper than processed food, and if we lobby by voting with our forks, we can easily help to change this price dynamic.

Let's move towards a 'business as unusual' food system, one bite at a time!

News

Inside the food industry: the surprising truth about what you eat by The Guardian

The dichotomy between 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' foods is more blurred than ever before. In the era of diet fads, we have created a system that allows for the injection of entirely unnatural chemicals and additives into our food products, all in the name of 'health'. 

This article explores this growing wave of health conscious consumerism and questions just how healthy our daily loaf of bread and fruit salad really is. While the horse meat scandal was one acute example of how the food industry can hide information from consumers, this is a chronic and perhaps even more harmful example. Many of the chemicals and artificial ingredients in our 'health' foods are toxic in high quantities, and even if present can be legally removed from ingredients lists if they are in small doses. But, those small doses add up, especially if the consumer believes it is nutritious and should be eaten frequently. 

The article is lengthy, so get a cup of tea. If you don't have time, the quote below sums it up quite nicely...

Source: pegitboard.com

Inspiration

(Video) American Kids Trying Breakfasts From Around The World by Mind Body Green

Whether on a global level or at the family dinner table, food is something that brings people together like nothing else. However, as Western diets sweep the globe, it is important to cherish the gastronomic heritage of other geographies: the culture, environments, religions, communities and families all intertwined in this.

This video is fantastic. It shows American kids trying different breakfasts from around the world. Their emotive reactions to the various meals are hilarious but also thought-provoking: perhaps we also need to abandon our prerequisite comfort zones surrounding breakfast food and explore the deliciously vast range of foods out there.

Having eaten South Indian idli and samba for breakfast for the past few weeks, I can honestly say that mixing up your breakfast transforms the rest of your day: you're more willing to try new foods, appreciate their new tastes, textures and aromas. I will be honest though: still nothing beats Marmite on toast...

My South Indian breakfast

Until next Sunday, enjoy!

x

Edible Insects: The future of food?

NB: This blog has been reposted from 2013. It will form part of a series on eating insects, or entomophagy. It is incredibly interesting to see how much has progressed in this field in the past year, and I will be writing about this soon... watch this space!

In January, I read the article What's for dinner in 2035 and, at the time, thought it was relatively unrealistic prediction of the future of food. In 20 years, the 'hard-off' will be eating nano-fruits, locusts and rice made from reconstituted potato, and the 'rich' will be eating satiation foods (i.e. naughty but oh so delicious foods that release hormones to make you feel full...because everyone wants that...), and the last of the 'real' meat in the world. I closed the article, told myself it was too overly dramatic, and went on with my day.

Insectivores R Us, Turl Street Kitchen, Oxford

It then got to March. My friend told me that she was doing her thesis on eating insects, looking mainly at the public perception of eating the six-plus legged creatures. A week later it happened. Going from what I thought was a pretty 'out there' topic, insect eating (or entomophagy) started appearing everywhere. In the news, in celebrity chef menus, in international development reports, and even in my local coffee shop.

If change like that can happen in the space of half a year, maybe the above predictions aren't so unrealistic after all...

Eating insects has been a long-standing tradition within many developing regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia, but in Western culinary cultures it is incredibly rare and usually only found if someone has recently come back from their overseas travels with a bunch of chocolate covered ants, toffee locusts or, at worst, worms. I remember the latter being passed round our Year 9 class from someones 'exotic travels', and eating one of those salted, crispy morsels was seen as more an act of courage than culinary delight.

So, what has changed?

The UN FAO recently published a list of more than 1,900 edible species of insects, framing insects as a highly abundant but underutilised, low cost, carbon-friendly and nutritious food source. It truly is seen as the new 'silver bullet' for solving world hunger, climate change and natural resource scarcity all in one.

Source: un.org

I agree that eating insects could be a genius way to: reduce the consumption of more input-intensive and carbon-unfriendly meats as a main source of protein; reduce pressure on land and crop resources (especially corn used in animal feed); and could help to shift the annoyingly stubborn culinary barriers within the global food system. However, I have some questions...

Insect sweets, salads, fries, sushi...but what about plain, unadulterated grubs?  A lot of the promotional focus is on insects within processed products, with the actual insect itself being drowned in a sea of thick sauce, hidden in pasta, or ground into an unidentifiable pulp. This raises a few questions.

Source: washingtonian.com

First, who will be fed? Despite the UN framing entomophagy as solving 'world' hunger, who will be able to afford these products? Also, will insects be a major part of people's diets or simply sprinkled on top of a pizza, sushi or steak? If this is the case, I really don't see the amount of insects being farmed and marketed as enough to ever replace the water, land and greenhouse gas intensive meat production system we have currently.

Second, who will be farming and producing these products? With insects not traditionally seen as 'high quality' foods in the West, I would argue that there is a risk that the quality and safety standards needed to produce, market and process insects will have to be so strict and stringent that only the very richest, very largest certified 'insect farmers' will be involved.

So, are insects simply a food for the 'ethical consumerists'? An ethical consumerist is someone, like me, who chooses particular foods and diets according to their ethical/environmental/socio-political values. As the film Food Inc concludes, we can vote as consumers for a particular food system every time we eat. With this being three times a day, it's probably the most important and easiest vote we can make.

Source: theguardian.com

However, at risk of creating stereotypes, most ethical consumerists are people with choice. In other words, they have the economic or social ability to afford the more expensive 'ethical' (local, organic, Fairtrade) foods. They also have made an active decision to shift to this lifestyle, and have cut foods out of their diet (e.g. meat, non-seasonal foods) not because it's their only option but because they can.

Overall, it seems as though there's a bit of a contradiction: international development agencies want insects to be a staple food item and a means to solve chronic malnourishment and world hunger; markets want insects to be a niche food item catering to ethical consumerists. Both want 'food security' but for different groups and probably by different means. Until a common goal is agreed upon, how likely are all promises going to be fulfilled without divided interests along the way?

Having said this, the push for raising the 'prestige' of grubs could be a positive in the long term (i.e. over generations). And oh boy, are they pushing it. Here are just some of the quotes I found: "this acquired taste is sensible, stylish and sustainable"..." and probably the best so far, describing a bug as an "elegantly poised" creature.

Marketing insects?
Source: dailymail.co.uk

A lack of social status for a particular crop or food item is one of the main drivers of lower consumption rates, even in areas where there were few alternative food sources. For example, my research on millet consumption in India found that, if rural households thought it was a 'poor person's food' and opposite to 'Western diets', they (particularly the younger generations) did not want to eat it. In this sense, removing the social taboo among Western consumer attitudes could in the long term diffuse down to the individuals who need food security the most.

The final question is of power.

Even the above statement that entomophagy could 'diffuse down to the individuals who need food security the most' is an odd one to make. Aren't these the individuals who gave us the idea to eat insects in the first place? Who have been eating bugs as a source of protein (in the natural form, rather than drowned in syrup) for centuries? How is it that the notion of 'entomophagy' has somehow been transformed into a bright idea of the international development agencies, the ethically conscious consumers and the West as a 'win win' solution to solving global crises? In this process, an entirely different geography of who produces, accesses and eats insects has been formed. Despite every article and report framing entomophagy as a 'traditional practice in over 80% of the world', why has all the power to control, produce, market and promote insect eating shifted to the other 20%?

These are questions I want answered, and I would love your comments and thoughts.

"To the lady who lost her blog"

The start of 2015 has not been easy on many people. It seems to be the time for trauma, illness, heartbreak, accidents... People deal with this in their own way, but my response was to pack up my bags and move geographical location. New place, people, adventures and a chance to follow my passions. Hence, I set off on a culinary and agricultural tour of South Asia and Europe, starting in India for four months. 

In reality, my trip lasted two weeks. I am not proud of my decision, but I am definitely not regretful nor unhappy. The passion and dream of a worldwide culinary tour is still there, it was just not the right time. Having said this, two weeks in India felt like four months, and the lessons I learned from going on my failed trip will stick with me for a long time. 

First, one should never expect anything from a place or person, especially if the expectation is a solution. My expectations of India were high: two years ago I met the most wonderful families and individuals in the Himalayas, ate delicious vegetarian food, and saw mindblowing monuments like the Taj Mahal. India captivated me and I was so excited to be tangled up in its chaotic but colourful web once more. Chaos is a double-edged sword, however. This time, I was thrown in at the deep end from my first night: scams, sexual harassment, bike accident, broken bank cards, illness, family issues at home, and a hacked blog. Perhaps if I was stronger from the start it would have been OK, but wherever I went, bad luck followed like an unwanted stray dog. 

Second, when you travel to find joy, excitement and comfort from a new place, you realise just how much you left behind. When shit hit the fan in India, so many people were kind enough to give their time and energy to help make things slightly smoother: the ironic thing is that 90% of these people were based right on my doorstep at home, right where I'd left them. 

Third, never underestimate the kindness of that extra 10%. In other words, strangers who become your friends, surrogate family and even lovers. If you're open to this kindness, they will give it in heaps. From giving me a flower every time I met them to slipping a lovely postcard under my door before I left, it is these strangers (now friends) who deserve to shape my memories of India. 

Finally, I want to merge all three of these lessons into one. When you do not expect anything, you can be open and honest in the situation you're in. You can see the kindness, love and excitement people and places have to give, which you might be blind to if you're searching for it. I want to give one anecdote to exemplify this:

Now back in Oxford, I have started a full-time job at an organic delicatessen. Yesterday, I served a young lady who excitedly told me that she writes a food blog about the psychology of food. My initial reaction was interest and enthusiasm; her blog sounded fantastic, unique and had a lot of parallels with my own. Perhaps we could work together, combine forces and change the food system!

Then I remembered that one vile person had come in and deleted several years of my work without giving a shit about the emotions, time, passion, research... They just wiped it all in an instant. She asked if I can recover them, I bluntly said that there isn't much point: simply copying and pasting old blogs just transforms them into effortless words. I had to continue serving customers, so promised I would check out her blog and hoped she had a good lunch. 

A few hours later, she came back in. She passed me a letter titled 'to the lady who lost her blog'. The letter went like this: 

I was so touched that even before opening and reading the letter I gave her a hug. She may not know it, but she has well and truly made my year so far. And, she will influence the rest of 2015 too: my blog may not be the same again, but I will aim to start filling it up with food puns, taste investigations and insights into politics behind the food system once more. And, like Annie offers, perhaps we will get the chance to combine forces after all...