See you soon

Im going to take a little break from this website… Those of you that know me know that I love cooking, and baking, and feeding (mainly feeding). I love markets and shopping for food. I love sneaking off into the kitchen and playing. I love gifting meals and often turn to nourishment as a way of showing love. But here is the thing, right now I am just not feeling inspired. Its very hard to find a balance between wanting to write about food and wanting to be successful writing about food. It isn’t enough anymore to simply cook and share. I need to time the posts, post at least five times a week, link to Facebook, share on Instagram, engage on Pinterest, be witty on Twitter. In order to attract an audience and work I need to be 100% on each of those outlets. And if I was to be 100% amazing online I can guarantee that I wouldn’t be 100% offline.

Right now I am also not loving the foodie world. I don’t know where I fit in or how to find my voice. I dont want to tell people how to eat, I dont know you or your body. I just want to cook great food, but every tag I use feels weighted. Do I use ‘vegan’ if the next recipe contains honey, should I use ‘paleo’, what about #natural or #wholesome, are they negative? what do they mean?. I feel like I am that person in between a donut and an avocado without knowing how to say that. I want people to eat really well, but not become obsessed. I want everyone to care what they eat, but not more than they care about living. The food scene can be a phenomenal one but it is also riddled with disillusion and complex. It has become a popularity contest determined by likes and follows. You dont need a qualification anymore to be taken seriously instead you just need a huge instagram account to dictate to people how they should eat. Im just feeling very turned off and tired of it all and until I get my mojo back I need to not be a part of it.

My life has changed in this last year. I am a mum of an amazing and demanding 13month old. My husband is recovering from depression and we are living in a city where we are only just making friends. Right now I don’t want to be in the kitchen and I don’t want to be googling ‘trending foods’. I have 12 hours of childcare a week and whilst I want to explore markets and foodie spots in some of those hours, I would also like to run and sleep and hang out with new friends and explore this city. I would like to find my feet in Munich, find the places that make my heart sing and that give me a sense of belonging. Writing recipes, styling and photographing them, blogging about them and shopping for them all take a lot of time and its time that I don’t have right now. We don’t have a support network here, there are no lie ins, no afternoons with granny. On top of that there aren’t superstores to get all our food needs in one go, there are no supermarket deliveries, no corner shops when I have run out of something and nothing open on a Sunday. Its all just become a bit too much effort for not very much return.

Whenever I feel inspired or something has turned out particularly delicious I will pop it up here on the website. If you want to read about daily life, musings and ramblings I am going to write over on www.mamanmaman.com

See you all soon and thank you for all the support x