Thoughtful Meals

Food has always played a main role in my life.

At home, in my childhood, it was the one thing that always worked. My nonna Anna is an excellent cook. She made me discover my passion for food, and it turned into my biggest form of love expression. You cook for the people you love because you want them to feel good, nourished, grounded. Food does that for me : it makes people happy, connected to their bodies. And that's why I love cooking.

Lately I have a question that pops up often in my thoughts.

Food has always played a massive role in my life, yet I've long struggled to give it enough space. I know it's essential but life distracts me, and I often end up cooking out of survival instinct rather than pleasure. Most days it doesn't feel like a privilege, but a chore.

Not long after I realized this, I decided to consciously create more space for it, and that was not easy. It's been a while now since I started eating more consciously and slowly, since I started prioritizing cooking and eating healthy meals as one of the top three priorities in my life. And yet, I'm surprised by how much energy it requires. I often talk to people and find us in the same situation, sharing the same feelings toward cooking. I love food, but I often don't have time for it.

I did culinary school, worked in many restaurants around Europe, and I've been a cooking teacher for almost ten years now and yet meals often feel so rushed! I find it ironic.

I always felt the call to work with children, passing on the knowledge I learnt from my nonna, the beauty of food and ingredients, to children. Teaching them how to cook makes me feel useful and grateful toward these wonderful gifts ingredients are. It's my way to celebrate it every day, and I'm endlessly proud of myself to have achieved this job.

But lately this question has been occupying my mind often: is teaching children how to cook enough?

Of course, I strongly believe that if you teach a child the love for ingredients, the healthy habit of celebrating food through meals, and independence in the kitchen, it will be a skill they carry for the rest of their life. But what happens when they get home? How long does it take for this skill to mature and become a habit? Is that enough?

I've noticed, through my personal experience, how difficult it is to create space for food.

Even for people who strongly believe in it, whose whole world gravitates around it. How can a child bring such a change in a short amount of time at home, while life flows mercilessly around us? There is so little time. I love working with children because for them, time is still such an abstract word. It inspires me to realize that it doesn't matter how much time we have, but how we decide to use it.

So I started to wonder: what if? What if I started to work with families too? What if I could use this fresh new knowledge of mine about food and time, and share it with families? What if we started, together, to create more conscious time for meals, and relearn how to celebrate food at every meal?

And this is how my journey into food coaching for families began.

I am so thrilled to share this with you, my dear reader. I'm so excited for this new chapter.

This is an opportunity to expand my work, to have the chance to cook not only with children but also with mothers, fathers, and families.

I've learnt that with a bit of organization and some new, simple habits, we can always have our pantry full of delicious food. The kind that's good for the soul. I realized this is essential for living our busy lifestyles at our best, especially in big cities.

Inspired by this mission, I created a new food coaching program of 3 months for families.

During the 3 months of coaching, I will cook with the children, 5 lessons where we learn about new ingredients and flavors, in that space where time doesn't matter and creativity has the rudder of the day.

Then, 2 lessons together with the parents, cooking and rediscovering the joy and the fun behind a delicious meal.

Parents deserve that! After cooking so many meals for their kids, food so often becomes more of a duty than a pleasure.

And finally, one full family session, where everyone cooks together chaos and all, because that's part of the fun too, and it's useful to cook despite the noise of everyday life.

I am genuinely excited for this new chapter of my work.

If this sounds like what your family needs, I'd love to hear from you. Send me an email at letsplaywithfood@gmail.comand let's set up a first chat over coffee no pressure, just a conversation about food and your family's story.

In the meantime, I want to leave you with a recipe that's close to my heart. These courgette fritters, kolokithokeftedes, are honestly the best. I make a huge batch of them, and after cooking I stock my freezer with them. You can keep them in the freezer up to 4 months! I prefer to leave them one night in the fridge from the freezer to come back to a nice temperature but in a rush they can be directly be put in the air-fryer or oven to warm up from the freezer too!

I love always having a touch of Greece in my house, for a Greek dinner or a quick, no-brainer meal. Sometimes we need to be quick, that's true, but if it can also be delicious, why not give it a try?

I wish you the most slow Sunday, and a fulfilling, joyful meal ahead.