Thank you so much, Flor! It means so much to hear that, and to have you here too <3 So happy as well to be in the “live to eat” club with you. I hope we can one day meet in person and share an incredible meal together :D
“I don’t run warm, I don’t run soft, and I don’t run melty with muted earth tones.
Instead, I run freezing hot, with ruffled waves and geometric edges, in the voluminous colour of fire and jewels.”
I adore the juxtapositions here and all the paradoxes. It makes me feel so alive and like the strength, complexity and vibrancy of you can be tasted through the words.
How you compared yourself to bao, how we, when we crave something, and that something connects us to love and belonging, become it. I loved the mention of your grandma and your connection through bao, your preference tying, you together more profoundly than just your relationship alone❤️🩹
And also your silent becoming of sugar as well. Translucent to the eye but sweeting everything you enter, even thought coming to yourself tasted bitter(sweet).
Much of my earliest years of childhood were spent in my grandmother’s kitchen as well, and I love this red string that connects my heart to yours ❤️
I can’t wait to invite you into my kitchen one day, and live out our connection through words though food this time, letting the two tangle together!
Kitchen and food and nourishing has helped me too, so much, come back to myself. A home created around fulfillment and warm smells.
I love your vivid descriptions of food as means of relation as well as reflection. It resonates with me so deeply.
Life like food, something warm something cold, sweet, bitter, salty, sour and everything in between. It couldn’t be pour into words more beautifully than here.
From your first poem, this one made me tear up🥹🥹
like the dish I am given
to serve up
dead-end memories
Green grapes, loudly crushed,
sparkle into wine – finding
me thirsty, setting me free
This reminded my of a time when a little me crouched green grapes with her feet to make wine with my grandma 🍇
If I could eat this piece I would 🍜🍛
Let’s offer art to the world like we offer food to our loved ones, I sure hope you keep doing so!🤍
My dear Nadia!! Reading your beautiful words and reflections here is like having you read me a truly special story – it moved me so much and means the world to me! :’) :’) I’m so happy you like that paradox sentence – that is probably one of my favourite sentences in the whole piece, and it helped the rest of the story emerge.
I appreciate so much the way you read and felt into the layers of meaning held by the bao and the sugar, especially about the connection with my grandmother. In the same way, it feels so special to be connected with you by our childhoods in our grandmothers’ kitchens too – it’s like both of us, our grandmothers, and the two kitchens are connected through time and space, and I love that so much. I absolutely can’t wait for our kitchen adventures and explorations one day! I can feel deeply through the colours of your own writing the special significance that food and kitchens have for you too, and how in the writing, sharing and reading of each other’s stories, a warm home is created for all of who we are, and our memories.
Thank you so much for feeling and carrying my heart in your reading and response to my poems! It’s so beautiful that you and your grandma made wine together by crushing grapes with your feet – what a precious memory to carry <3 And it’s the greatest compliment ever to know that this piece is delicious to you, like food to be eaten! So honoured to be on this artist’s path and journey with you, offering our art to the world like we offer food to those we love – I will keep this intention with me always. Truly grateful for you <3 <3 <3
Many, many years ago, I was a food blogger. Thanks to you I have a revelation that I too once seek to make sense of my life story via food. Back in the early food blogging days of the internet, most of us write diaries and mini memoirs linking to a food that we just made and also wanted to share.
I was a "live to eat" by heart, but over the years I have also learned to accept "eat to live" by necessity.
Once again I find commonality with you regarding my childhood. I too first grew up in a warm family life, though I was too young to recall anything to do with a kitchen there, and then for a few years my Ah Ma cooked for us, which until now became my ultimate source of what comfort food is. My mother on the other hand is like yours, she doesn't cook nor does she care that much about what she eats.
My relationship with food is also a duality. I write food stories sometimes for what I yearn or have lost, and sometimes to relive the warmth of my Ah Ma's kitchen. And now I cook, not with as much rigor as I envision a food lover will, but definitely with love for my family, in the limited amount of time we have.
Thank you so much Rachel for being here and sharing your beautiful reflections and personal stories too! I really loved getting to know about your experience and memories of being a food blogger, and how food also has this special and poignant place in your heart and life.
I feel that you really captured the essence of “live to eat” for me when you mentioned how all that you cook is cooked with love for your family – I really believe that it’s not about what the food actually is, and everything about how food is honoured as a love letter sent by the one who cooks the food to the one who eats the food, and in that way, to me you embody “live to eat” <3
Thank you for sharing too about the duality in your relationship with food. I feel like there should be a day to celebrate grandmother’s kitchens! It is heartwarming to hear about your Ah Ma’s kitchen being the birthplace of comfort food for you, and it feels special to share that connection too. Reading your reflections here also made me think about your story about your dad and the green tea ice creams in the freezer, which left such a vivid impression on me. If you do share any of the food stories you write, I really look forward to reading them <3
It definitely stayed in my heart, and it’s so lovely yet also bittersweet to hear you will be enjoying another green tea ice cream soon. So happy to hear that this piece has sparked your interest in food writing again, and yes, please share when you do! I would so love to read it! :)
OMG this is a treasure trove of a piece, dear Suyin. A wellspring to which I will keep returning. Oh my heart. “What I crave, need, or love, is what I seek out in order to find my sense of calm, peace, nourishment, and safety, so that (the rest of) who I am feels safe to emerge.” I am going to carry this message with me for life. Thank you. I completely identify with you also in terms of carrying the pain and ache of many others. You’re absolutely right about how we sometimes end up internalising someone else’s fears & baggage without even realising it.
You have described the Bao so beautifully. This is what the divine must feel like. And oh my, what a delight it was to read the three poems again! They pierced me just as much as they did when I hear you read them. You are INCREDIBLE at using line breaks & space in a poem, Suyin. The way the word “awake” lands at the end of the piece just went straight to my heart. I’m reading this mid-flight & having such visceral-emotional reactions to it.
The haikus are also achingly beautiful. I really lucked out having you in this course. Thank you for your kind words. I’m very touched by you calling me a mentor: but I think the truth is that in a writing workshop space, we are all co-creating and co-mentoring each other. It’s such a mutual energy. You are as much my mentor. What a gift this has been. I’ll forever be grateful. 💝🎁
(PS: please post this in our Wildflowers community, in the “Share your Writing” space - everyone NEEDS to read this piece! With your permission, I’d also love to share this to my Instagram stories).
Dear Trivarna, wow thank you so, so much for your incredibly generous and beautiful reflections here! I am truly moved beyond words :') My heart is absolutely filled to know that my writing can be a wellspring to which you return, and to have the words I write be carried with you. Sending you so much love for the pain and aches you found yourself carrying too, and sending you light for releasing what isn’t ours to carry.
I will always keep with me how you experienced my writing about Bao – to have it connected with an experience of the divine, I can’t even say how much that means to me. I appreciate all your kind words about my poetic form and haikus and want to say that I really treasured the safe and healing space you held in our sharing sessions for me to read out my poems, and then to be inspired to rework them later – the last two lines with “awake” came to me in the afterglow of inspiration from our sessions.
I’m so deeply touched and honoured to receive your words about our co-creation and co-mentoring in our workshops – this has been such an incredible gift to me too, thank you. It’ll be my absolute pleasure to share in our Wildflowers Community and I so appreciate you sharing / linking to my Substack on your Instagram Stories too – it means the world to me, thank you! <3 <3
Thank you for another poignant and enchanting post for those who “live to eat”—who appreciate the sentimentality, warmth, and joy of shared meals and childhood recipes.
As I read this, I found myself craving my Por Por’s (grandmother’s) fried rice and my Gong Gong’s (grandfather’s) garlic prawns. How I miss our family dinners and the way they always welcomed me to the table. In their kitchen, I was always physically and emotionally full.
Finally, your "bao" comparison was brilliant! I loved it!
Thank you so much Heidi, I really appreciate you being here, and your thoughtful reflections. I’m so glad you liked the part about bao too, that part is very special to me! I can feel in your memories of your Por Por’s fried rice and Gong Gong’s garlic prawns how the idea of “live to eat” is so beautifully rooted in your being, as well. I remember reading about your Gong Gong’s special butterflied garlic prawns in your essay, A Place at The Table (https://heiditaiwrites.substack.com/p/a-place-at-the-table), and I thought how delicious it sounded! I loved that piece and it’s heartwarming to know how all the food they cooked for you over the years has given you these beautiful memories of physical and emotional fullness that are carried with you today <3
Wow it means so much that you read and remembered that piece! You have a magical way of describing so much of what I feel when I’m eating with my grandparents.
I love all your writing in connection with food! I also remember your piece on the Super Bowl restaurant. And so touched to hear that we can remain interconnected with our grandparents and their kitchens through our memories, feelings and senses ❤️
Haha wow, you've helped me to see that I write about food a lot. I love that you can empathise with the deep connection that one can have with food. It's such a big part of my culture, family history and upbringing. Growing up in the West, I found it difficult to express this to others. It's not *just* food haha!
Yes, food is never just about food haha! I’ve found that’s why I always feel most at home in cultures where food is central to life, and I wanted to celebrate these cultures too when I wrote about the strangers turned family around the world who invited me into their home kitchens and cooked for me 💛
This was such an intriguing piece! I ever never read anything like this before. It makes me want to explore food in my own writing. And I really enjoyed your poem about tea!
Thank you, Kym! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed reading this piece and the tea poem, and even more so to know that you’re inspired to explore food in your own writing! Please let me know when you do, I would absolutely love to read any food writing that you share!
Did you find Foodstack and are you part of it? There are so many of us around here who live to eat (well) and you deserve a large audience for all this deliciousness.
Thank you for such kind words and for letting me know about Foodstack! It looks like an amazing collection of Substacks with food recipes and food reviews. I’ll check if they’re open to Substacks like mine, where food features as a significant theme though not in the form of recipes and reviews ☺️ I really appreciate your note and cheers to being part of the living to eat well club! ✨
"I have loved eating bao since I was a child, and I have always favoured eating bao over the fillings it holds. My grandmother shared the same preference. Whenever we shared a meat bao, we both wanted to eat just the bao and give the filling to each other. “You’re strange, like me,” my grandma laughed. “Who wouldn’t prefer to eat the filling?”"
This was so tender and so loving. Thank you for sharing your memories, it is such a treasure to read your writing. I too have similar memories of cooking bao, or what we call siopao. My dad would cook the dough and I would steal bits of the uncooked siopao dough and play with it, pretending it was play-dough or clay.
Thank you so much for being here, Alyssa, and for your thoughtful and tender shares too. It’s so beautiful to hear that you also share a memory of bao and family! It must have been so fun to make siopao with your dad and play with the dough! I really appreciate your share ✨💗
The cravings meditation — Bao! I smiled so deeply when reading that part because I too prefer to eat the soft, pillowy, white bao to anything else. Char siu bao is my go-to at dim sum and ever since I was a child, I’d eat most of the meat first and save the best for last lol
"Not everyone’s landing place for healing needs to be soft white clouds, at all times." - this left me speechless.
I had to read "The Eye of the Storm" poem again and again, it's so multilayered and beautifully written. How you intricately blended the kitchen, these ingredients that are citrusy, sour, spicy, pungent (that play such a huge role in our cooking and idk about your family but cooking and food is a big part of how my mother loves) - I found myself holding my breath at the bittersweetness of it all.
Ahh Joscelyne! Reading what you said makes me want to start a club of people who love bao over the filling 😃 thank you for sharing your thoughtful reflections - I loved knowing that the line about landing places resonated for you. It’s something I’ve felt a lot.
And I’m so glad you like Eye of the Storm - it was definitely inspired by the flavours of Southeast Asian kitchens and my grandmother’s kitchen too. Cooking to express love was not a thing for my mother and I wrote this piece as one of my own ways of navigating the absence of that in my childhood and life, particularly in this poem.
I really appreciate you reading and all you shared 💛💛
Suyin, my dear friend, your pieces always astound me with their depth and care. The way you write about food, beauty and art with so much colour, warmth, vibrancy and passion is inspiring. It’s like the words are dancing in technicolor and each sentence is a piece of art, lovingly sculpted.
I loved the poetry, in particular the second one about pink flowers and green grapes. I shyly admit I am someone who eats to live and sometimes wishes I didn’t have to eat at all, but this poem reminded me of my absolute love for green grapes and how happy they make me. I can’t wait for them to come back into season now.
All the writing I am reading that has come out of Trivarna’s workshop has been so decadent and warm and delicious. It feels healing to read about food from such a loving and communal lens. A celebration of our sense of taste and nourishment and connection.
Thank you so much for sharing my poem, it really touched me and made me smile 🥲
Suyin, this is so beautiful. My heart smiles when I get the notification you posted a new piece - I just love to read your words. Thank you <3
PS. I belong to the "live to eat" club too and I love it here ;)
Thank you so much, Flor! It means so much to hear that, and to have you here too <3 So happy as well to be in the “live to eat” club with you. I hope we can one day meet in person and share an incredible meal together :D
Awww me too i was so excited to read this piece and I love it so much.
I’m so grateful for you🩶
It truly makes my heart so full to hear that :') Thank you so much, dear Anna, always so grateful for you too <3 <3 <3
Oh my god that piece had enchanted me so deeply☁️
“I don’t run warm, I don’t run soft, and I don’t run melty with muted earth tones.
Instead, I run freezing hot, with ruffled waves and geometric edges, in the voluminous colour of fire and jewels.”
I adore the juxtapositions here and all the paradoxes. It makes me feel so alive and like the strength, complexity and vibrancy of you can be tasted through the words.
How you compared yourself to bao, how we, when we crave something, and that something connects us to love and belonging, become it. I loved the mention of your grandma and your connection through bao, your preference tying, you together more profoundly than just your relationship alone❤️🩹
And also your silent becoming of sugar as well. Translucent to the eye but sweeting everything you enter, even thought coming to yourself tasted bitter(sweet).
Much of my earliest years of childhood were spent in my grandmother’s kitchen as well, and I love this red string that connects my heart to yours ❤️
I can’t wait to invite you into my kitchen one day, and live out our connection through words though food this time, letting the two tangle together!
Kitchen and food and nourishing has helped me too, so much, come back to myself. A home created around fulfillment and warm smells.
I love your vivid descriptions of food as means of relation as well as reflection. It resonates with me so deeply.
Life like food, something warm something cold, sweet, bitter, salty, sour and everything in between. It couldn’t be pour into words more beautifully than here.
From your first poem, this one made me tear up🥹🥹
like the dish I am given
to serve up
dead-end memories
Green grapes, loudly crushed,
sparkle into wine – finding
me thirsty, setting me free
This reminded my of a time when a little me crouched green grapes with her feet to make wine with my grandma 🍇
If I could eat this piece I would 🍜🍛
Let’s offer art to the world like we offer food to our loved ones, I sure hope you keep doing so!🤍
My dear Nadia!! Reading your beautiful words and reflections here is like having you read me a truly special story – it moved me so much and means the world to me! :’) :’) I’m so happy you like that paradox sentence – that is probably one of my favourite sentences in the whole piece, and it helped the rest of the story emerge.
I appreciate so much the way you read and felt into the layers of meaning held by the bao and the sugar, especially about the connection with my grandmother. In the same way, it feels so special to be connected with you by our childhoods in our grandmothers’ kitchens too – it’s like both of us, our grandmothers, and the two kitchens are connected through time and space, and I love that so much. I absolutely can’t wait for our kitchen adventures and explorations one day! I can feel deeply through the colours of your own writing the special significance that food and kitchens have for you too, and how in the writing, sharing and reading of each other’s stories, a warm home is created for all of who we are, and our memories.
Thank you so much for feeling and carrying my heart in your reading and response to my poems! It’s so beautiful that you and your grandma made wine together by crushing grapes with your feet – what a precious memory to carry <3 And it’s the greatest compliment ever to know that this piece is delicious to you, like food to be eaten! So honoured to be on this artist’s path and journey with you, offering our art to the world like we offer food to those we love – I will keep this intention with me always. Truly grateful for you <3 <3 <3
Another beautiful piece!
Many, many years ago, I was a food blogger. Thanks to you I have a revelation that I too once seek to make sense of my life story via food. Back in the early food blogging days of the internet, most of us write diaries and mini memoirs linking to a food that we just made and also wanted to share.
I was a "live to eat" by heart, but over the years I have also learned to accept "eat to live" by necessity.
Once again I find commonality with you regarding my childhood. I too first grew up in a warm family life, though I was too young to recall anything to do with a kitchen there, and then for a few years my Ah Ma cooked for us, which until now became my ultimate source of what comfort food is. My mother on the other hand is like yours, she doesn't cook nor does she care that much about what she eats.
My relationship with food is also a duality. I write food stories sometimes for what I yearn or have lost, and sometimes to relive the warmth of my Ah Ma's kitchen. And now I cook, not with as much rigor as I envision a food lover will, but definitely with love for my family, in the limited amount of time we have.
Thank you so much Rachel for being here and sharing your beautiful reflections and personal stories too! I really loved getting to know about your experience and memories of being a food blogger, and how food also has this special and poignant place in your heart and life.
I feel that you really captured the essence of “live to eat” for me when you mentioned how all that you cook is cooked with love for your family – I really believe that it’s not about what the food actually is, and everything about how food is honoured as a love letter sent by the one who cooks the food to the one who eats the food, and in that way, to me you embody “live to eat” <3
Thank you for sharing too about the duality in your relationship with food. I feel like there should be a day to celebrate grandmother’s kitchens! It is heartwarming to hear about your Ah Ma’s kitchen being the birthplace of comfort food for you, and it feels special to share that connection too. Reading your reflections here also made me think about your story about your dad and the green tea ice creams in the freezer, which left such a vivid impression on me. If you do share any of the food stories you write, I really look forward to reading them <3
I'm touched you remember the green tea ice cream! In fact I'm going to enjoy one soon as the day is coming along again..
I'll definitely share if I write something about food again. You might have just spark the interest again! :)
It definitely stayed in my heart, and it’s so lovely yet also bittersweet to hear you will be enjoying another green tea ice cream soon. So happy to hear that this piece has sparked your interest in food writing again, and yes, please share when you do! I would so love to read it! :)
OMG this is a treasure trove of a piece, dear Suyin. A wellspring to which I will keep returning. Oh my heart. “What I crave, need, or love, is what I seek out in order to find my sense of calm, peace, nourishment, and safety, so that (the rest of) who I am feels safe to emerge.” I am going to carry this message with me for life. Thank you. I completely identify with you also in terms of carrying the pain and ache of many others. You’re absolutely right about how we sometimes end up internalising someone else’s fears & baggage without even realising it.
You have described the Bao so beautifully. This is what the divine must feel like. And oh my, what a delight it was to read the three poems again! They pierced me just as much as they did when I hear you read them. You are INCREDIBLE at using line breaks & space in a poem, Suyin. The way the word “awake” lands at the end of the piece just went straight to my heart. I’m reading this mid-flight & having such visceral-emotional reactions to it.
The haikus are also achingly beautiful. I really lucked out having you in this course. Thank you for your kind words. I’m very touched by you calling me a mentor: but I think the truth is that in a writing workshop space, we are all co-creating and co-mentoring each other. It’s such a mutual energy. You are as much my mentor. What a gift this has been. I’ll forever be grateful. 💝🎁
(PS: please post this in our Wildflowers community, in the “Share your Writing” space - everyone NEEDS to read this piece! With your permission, I’d also love to share this to my Instagram stories).
Dear Trivarna, wow thank you so, so much for your incredibly generous and beautiful reflections here! I am truly moved beyond words :') My heart is absolutely filled to know that my writing can be a wellspring to which you return, and to have the words I write be carried with you. Sending you so much love for the pain and aches you found yourself carrying too, and sending you light for releasing what isn’t ours to carry.
I will always keep with me how you experienced my writing about Bao – to have it connected with an experience of the divine, I can’t even say how much that means to me. I appreciate all your kind words about my poetic form and haikus and want to say that I really treasured the safe and healing space you held in our sharing sessions for me to read out my poems, and then to be inspired to rework them later – the last two lines with “awake” came to me in the afterglow of inspiration from our sessions.
I’m so deeply touched and honoured to receive your words about our co-creation and co-mentoring in our workshops – this has been such an incredible gift to me too, thank you. It’ll be my absolute pleasure to share in our Wildflowers Community and I so appreciate you sharing / linking to my Substack on your Instagram Stories too – it means the world to me, thank you! <3 <3
Thank you for another poignant and enchanting post for those who “live to eat”—who appreciate the sentimentality, warmth, and joy of shared meals and childhood recipes.
As I read this, I found myself craving my Por Por’s (grandmother’s) fried rice and my Gong Gong’s (grandfather’s) garlic prawns. How I miss our family dinners and the way they always welcomed me to the table. In their kitchen, I was always physically and emotionally full.
Finally, your "bao" comparison was brilliant! I loved it!
Thank you so much Heidi, I really appreciate you being here, and your thoughtful reflections. I’m so glad you liked the part about bao too, that part is very special to me! I can feel in your memories of your Por Por’s fried rice and Gong Gong’s garlic prawns how the idea of “live to eat” is so beautifully rooted in your being, as well. I remember reading about your Gong Gong’s special butterflied garlic prawns in your essay, A Place at The Table (https://heiditaiwrites.substack.com/p/a-place-at-the-table), and I thought how delicious it sounded! I loved that piece and it’s heartwarming to know how all the food they cooked for you over the years has given you these beautiful memories of physical and emotional fullness that are carried with you today <3
Wow it means so much that you read and remembered that piece! You have a magical way of describing so much of what I feel when I’m eating with my grandparents.
I love all your writing in connection with food! I also remember your piece on the Super Bowl restaurant. And so touched to hear that we can remain interconnected with our grandparents and their kitchens through our memories, feelings and senses ❤️
Haha wow, you've helped me to see that I write about food a lot. I love that you can empathise with the deep connection that one can have with food. It's such a big part of my culture, family history and upbringing. Growing up in the West, I found it difficult to express this to others. It's not *just* food haha!
Yes, food is never just about food haha! I’ve found that’s why I always feel most at home in cultures where food is central to life, and I wanted to celebrate these cultures too when I wrote about the strangers turned family around the world who invited me into their home kitchens and cooked for me 💛
This was such an intriguing piece! I ever never read anything like this before. It makes me want to explore food in my own writing. And I really enjoyed your poem about tea!
Thank you, Kym! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed reading this piece and the tea poem, and even more so to know that you’re inspired to explore food in your own writing! Please let me know when you do, I would absolutely love to read any food writing that you share!
"In the heart's teacup". That's a gorgeous image. I can feel the healing comfort of steam and unfurling beauty. Thank you.
Thank you so much for reading and being here, Caroline! I’m so glad to know that the tea poem brought you comfort and beauty 🍵
Did you find Foodstack and are you part of it? There are so many of us around here who live to eat (well) and you deserve a large audience for all this deliciousness.
Thank you for such kind words and for letting me know about Foodstack! It looks like an amazing collection of Substacks with food recipes and food reviews. I’ll check if they’re open to Substacks like mine, where food features as a significant theme though not in the form of recipes and reviews ☺️ I really appreciate your note and cheers to being part of the living to eat well club! ✨
"I have loved eating bao since I was a child, and I have always favoured eating bao over the fillings it holds. My grandmother shared the same preference. Whenever we shared a meat bao, we both wanted to eat just the bao and give the filling to each other. “You’re strange, like me,” my grandma laughed. “Who wouldn’t prefer to eat the filling?”"
This was so tender and so loving. Thank you for sharing your memories, it is such a treasure to read your writing. I too have similar memories of cooking bao, or what we call siopao. My dad would cook the dough and I would steal bits of the uncooked siopao dough and play with it, pretending it was play-dough or clay.
Thank you so much for being here, Alyssa, and for your thoughtful and tender shares too. It’s so beautiful to hear that you also share a memory of bao and family! It must have been so fun to make siopao with your dad and play with the dough! I really appreciate your share ✨💗
The cravings meditation — Bao! I smiled so deeply when reading that part because I too prefer to eat the soft, pillowy, white bao to anything else. Char siu bao is my go-to at dim sum and ever since I was a child, I’d eat most of the meat first and save the best for last lol
"Not everyone’s landing place for healing needs to be soft white clouds, at all times." - this left me speechless.
I had to read "The Eye of the Storm" poem again and again, it's so multilayered and beautifully written. How you intricately blended the kitchen, these ingredients that are citrusy, sour, spicy, pungent (that play such a huge role in our cooking and idk about your family but cooking and food is a big part of how my mother loves) - I found myself holding my breath at the bittersweetness of it all.
Ahh Joscelyne! Reading what you said makes me want to start a club of people who love bao over the filling 😃 thank you for sharing your thoughtful reflections - I loved knowing that the line about landing places resonated for you. It’s something I’ve felt a lot.
And I’m so glad you like Eye of the Storm - it was definitely inspired by the flavours of Southeast Asian kitchens and my grandmother’s kitchen too. Cooking to express love was not a thing for my mother and I wrote this piece as one of my own ways of navigating the absence of that in my childhood and life, particularly in this poem.
I really appreciate you reading and all you shared 💛💛
i can’t wait for the nothing but bao club (and i think it’s time for a bao emoji ☁️ ☁️ ☁️)
Suyin, my dear friend, your pieces always astound me with their depth and care. The way you write about food, beauty and art with so much colour, warmth, vibrancy and passion is inspiring. It’s like the words are dancing in technicolor and each sentence is a piece of art, lovingly sculpted.
I loved the poetry, in particular the second one about pink flowers and green grapes. I shyly admit I am someone who eats to live and sometimes wishes I didn’t have to eat at all, but this poem reminded me of my absolute love for green grapes and how happy they make me. I can’t wait for them to come back into season now.
All the writing I am reading that has come out of Trivarna’s workshop has been so decadent and warm and delicious. It feels healing to read about food from such a loving and communal lens. A celebration of our sense of taste and nourishment and connection.
Thank you so much for sharing my poem, it really touched me and made me smile 🥲
This is such a wonderful piece of writing!!
I just came across your substack and wow. Everything here is written with so much heart and beauty. I love posts about food too♥️