Gastronomy saves lives (and it saved mine)

A love letter to flavours, childhood, and the meals that carry stories.

Where do your senses go when your emotions are all over the place?

There comes a time (maybe a few) when everything that once felt steady just… isn’t.
Doesn’t matter what your career used to be called or what your five-year plan said.
Everything shakes. Everything says no. And that’s alright.

Then, out of nowhere, there’s a hug for no reason. A hot plate.
A kitchen full of smells that doesn’t ask for your CV or what you’re hoping to achieve at your next performance review.
A recipe that doesn’t need anything from you but your presence.

Gastronomy became that for me: a space where I didn’t have to prove anything.
Didn’t have to pitch myself.
Just had to show up.

when serving plates ends up serving you

When I took a job in food service, I thought it was a stopgap, a “for now” thing—just until I figured things out.
A job to pay rent and bide time while I waited for “my thing” to come back around.

But something else happened in the meantime.

I let myself try new dishes—right alongside a new version of myself.

Learning the backstory behind a classic, the nostalgia baked into a bit of bread, or the quiet process happening behind the kitchen doors until a dish lands on the table—I found bits of myself that had been left behind, somewhere far off.

Without meaning to, I was also tasting a new way of seeing my own reality.

In hospitality, I found what no office had ever given me: ritual, a sense of belonging, empathy, and the kind of hugs that come in the form of a well-made dish.

flavours speak on your behalf

I thought I was just saving myself—but turns out, I was also healing.

Every flavour had something to say. Every dish told a new story.
Guests who’d tell me bits about their day, colleagues showing me how to build a plate properly, the lessons I got on how to make decent coffee—without realising, I was cooking through parts of myself that felt broken.

The food wasn’t just feeding me.
It was speaking. Soothing. Gathering.

recipes that bring back memories

I never formally trained in cooking. Never really thought I had to.

So when it came to choosing a place that would have me on their team, I went for those who wanted you to be part of their “something”—who wanted you to fit in and be able to describe the dishes with the same care and patience the chef who created them had.

That’s where I learnt that dishes aren’t just cooked.
They’re talked over, tested, shared.
You wait for the taster’s reaction—the gleam in their eye, or that heavy exhale that lets you know: you got it right.

Every recipe is a country, a family, a language, a grief.
A kitchen doesn’t just feed—it remembers.
And by remembering, it makes you part of something.

You remember the way your gran-ma once cooked on a Sunday.
Your uncle’s patience doing an “asado”.
The buzz of hearing “food’s ready!” while you waited in your room, stomach rumbling.

where I learnt to really listen to myself

In that unexpected space, I found something I wasn’t even looking for: a version of me I’d forgotten.

One that didn’t need briefs or strategy decks.
Just smells, tastes, laughter.
One that knew that serving someone a plate is really just a way of getting close.

And it was there, between warm bread and handwritten family recipes, that I remembered something important: how to enjoy things again.

Years ago, I used to let myself make choices without some grand plan behind them.
I let myself play, cook, invent, record. Make up recipes and pretend to be them.

Maybe it was always there.
It just needed room to come back out.

sometimes life doesn’t want a plan, it just wants you to show up

When life caved in, the kitchen stayed standing.
And I sat at the table. Not as a guest. As part of it.

It wasn’t just a job.
It was a sensory refuge.
A way of being without having to explain myself.

Gastronomy brought me back to myself, one dish at a time.
It didn’t ask me to know what to do with my life.
Just to show up. Smell. Taste.

And sometimes, that’s more than enough.

– Abi