The Simple Things in Life

My leading aspiration is to taste food from all over the world – by going all over the world. Food in its simplest form – a single ingredient – as well as food exquisitely prepared by local cooks and top-chefs alike.

I go through one of two food phases in my everyday life. One involves me cooking up a storm on a daily basis, where my mind is constantly imagining new dishes and flavour combinations and I look up recipes to inspire me. The other phase I go through is one where I am quite indifferent to cooking and all I want is simple, basic food. Often the same food for days. I am currently in this phase. All I feel like are smoothies. A fruity smoothie in the morning and a chocolate smoothie in the evening. A sandwich in the afternoon, or just prosciutto slices and a handful of nuts. Perhaps some mange tout while sipping wine (in the evening).

This second phase leads to restlessness. I begin to itch with the need to spend a full day in the kitchen. Making something time-consuming, thought-consuming, and beautiful – it must be beautiful. Of course it must by tasty – but that is a given with the food I eat – it must always be delicious and satisfying. And so I transition back to phase one. I look through my recipe books, I go through my favourite blogs, and I decide on something I want to make – usually a recipe that I want to follow (as opposed to creating something myself – that comes a little further along during phase one).

The day comes. Kitchen day. My favourite recipes to make on day one of phase one usually involves dough. Low-Carb dough. For a quiche, a tart, a pasta, a pastry, muffins, cake, cupcakes. Something special, different. Something that takes time, patience, concentration. Something that is therapeutic and feels like creating an art piece. 

Even when I make something elaborate – it is simple in its ability to bring me such a sense of pride and pleasure. I do believe that we all have something simple that brings us the most joy in our life. Besides people I mean. Because the ones I love, by far, complete my life and make life worth living. However, there is such beauty on this earth – natural beauty, in what the earth produces, that we can experience with our senses. The simple things. Like smelling fresh air – as in clean air – when you smell it, you realise it has a smell. Like feeling sand beneath ones feet and seeing mountains and hearing the rhythmic sounds of waves. Tasting something you’ve never tasted before. The textures and flavours so incredible it makes you giddy with childlike gratification. It is the simple things in life that ignite our senses.

When we allow the simple things in life to make us smile – when we realise that we only really need simple things – we can feel content.

For me, a slice of bread with butter, is simple bliss. I love making low carb breads, and actually prefer my homemade breads to ‘regular’ bread. I love perfectly boiled eggs. Add that to my buttered bread and it’s one of my favourite breakfasts.