Cook, walk, draw. Make a garden where you will grow.

Hi. How are you? Did you have a rough couple of days or do you feel like the world is your oyster? Maybe you are drinking a nice cup of tea while you’re reading this or eating freshly made chocolate chip cookies. I bet they’re still warm.  Maybe it’s hot at this moment in your part of the world and nice, cold lemonade or homemade ice cream is more suitable. Be it as it may, I’m glad you found me. Welcome! I will try to make this introductory post sweet and short. Very hard thing to do for a person whose favorite activity is a long, deep conversation over a cup of coffee or glass of gin & tonic. Depending on the occasion.

Cooking, walking, gardening, and drawing are 4 activities that this little family enjoys the most. Dejan, my husband, is a passionate cook who constantly strives to learn more and try new flavors. He says it’s the result of living two months in Hong Kong where the cuisine was nothing like Europe. It was either start loving new, exotic dishes or die of hunger. Probably not, but it’s more poetic when it’s exaggerated.  I however haven’t been interested in cooking until recently but I will come to that in a moment.

Going for a walk is an activity one embraces when one moves to Norway. Which we did at the beginning of our 30s. We never managed to upgrade to jogging though. Just not our thing. Long walks in nature however are a must for us. Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo is my favorite place to wander and I will probably have more than one post about it. Drawing is my occupation and preoccupation for the last couple of years. When I don’t draw for work, I draw in my sketchbook as a hobby. Finally, gardening is the newest obsession we embraced. It is Dejan’s hobby and hard work. It is my joy to see his happiness whenever new life starts to bubble in one of many pots on our balcony.

Lat summer his garden gave us 3,5 kg of cherry tomatoes, 600 gr of beetroots, some red beans, several jalapenos, peppers, and lettuce. Additionally, there was a butterfly garden in one corner and a herb garden in another.  Lots of work and dedication were poured into that garden in order to give us just several purely organic dinners. It put things into perspective for us. It made us think about how we eat and how much food we waste sometimes. Very precious food. That is why we started to plan our meals and do recipes research. I decided to finally learn how to cook properly the best way I can…by drawing recipes.

That brings me to the point where I am now. Learning to cook. Researching and drawing recipes. Still going for long walks. Still enjoying watching Dejan growing his outdoor or indoor garden, depending on the season. I would like to share all those experiences with you through this blog and I will be very happy if you would join me. Additionally, very soon I will start sharing some of those illustrated recipes via email, so hit that subscribe button if you would like to get them.
There! It wasn’t short after all, but I hope it was at least sweet. Have a great day!