CHAPTER 1
Once upon a time, in a far away Mediterranean land, there was a little girl who got excited and enthusiastic every time she could learn something new.
She was curious, very sociable and cheerful and she loved to give shape to her imaginary world by working and playing with her little hands.
Since she was a baby, she spent a lot of time in the kitchen with her grandmother, who was looking after her while preparing delicious homemade food for the family. Time passed happy-go-lucky and our little girl did not imagine that this experience of her childhood and those skills learned so playfully and naturally would have deeply marked the course of her future life, full of adventures and turning points...
CHAPTER 2
All mouths are sisters
Our little girl was born into a family of humble farming origins. Her grandparents passed down folk wisdom to her through the teachings of ancient proverbs.
Whenever she was offered food she particularly enjoyed, her grandmother would repeat: "remember that all mouths are sisters." The proverb was a continuous invitation to consider food as a gift to be shared.
The little girl only received sweets and candies on special occasions, and many times she would have gladly kept these delicacies all to herself, but all she needed was the glance of another child who had gone hungry to remind her that "all mouths are sisters" and to instinctively feel the need to share her treasures to see the joy on a sister-mouth!
Since then she has learned to consider food and its sharing a daily practice of generosity: to give for the pure joy of making someone else happy!
It still happens that especially the fear and insecurity related to the thought of "not-having-enough" triggers natural feelings of greed and avarice.
Then our little girl, now grown up, observes her sister-mouths and remembers the deep joy that her heart feels every time she sees them so happy when sharing.
CHAPTER 3 #BeyondRecipes
The girl has slowly grown up and the many challenges of life have made her strong and mature.
She has never lost her interest in good food and the wonders of life and is now ready to share her thoughts and experiences with all of you.
So let's start with reflections on Food&Life.
Food and its role in our lives: We can define Food as "anything that is eaten, drunk or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth and all the vital processes."
Following this basic definition, Food is somehow anything we "consume" to provide nutritional support to ourselves.
That also means, that anything taken into the body as well as images, sounds, smells, tactile inputs could be considered Food because they are also "substances and informations we consume" and process to sustain our growth and life.
Our experience tells us that there's Food which has a lot of nutrients and benefits for our well-being and Food which can poisons us or making us sick, especially if consumed in big quantities.
Our experience also tells us how difficult is most of the time to discern exactly which Food is helping our well-being and which one is making us sick.
We can actually find this difficulty of understanding and discerning with all the Food listed above (images, sounds/words/thoughts, smells, tactile inputs) we daily consume.
We are in our consumer society so overload and overwhelmed with food/images/information that we get easily lost and we really need tools and support to inquire and to understand how those Foods are affecting our growth in order to be able to consciously choose what really sustains our personal life and well-being and what not.
#BeyondRecipes is a project born to explore together what can help us to grow strong, happy, free and peaceful.
It aims to understand together which Food is genuinely nutritious for our personal and unique body-mind-spirit and how we can take care of the well-being of ourselves and others by trusting our intuitions and exercising our own free will.
This is an invitation to journey together beyond recipes: to care, to nurture, to feel, to share, to taste, to imagine, to embody, to cook, to create, to enjoy, to love!
With all my love, Maria-Lucrezia