Community and self-growth

Anecdotes about life, working on a retreat and the value of friendships

Homemade pesto pasta, apple cinnamon cake with custard. Granola and fresh fruit, butternut squash and coconut soup with crusty homemade bread, soy miso glazed whole carrots, whipped feta with grilled courgette, burrata and roasted tomatoes, halloumi caramelised red onion quiche, burnt dates in salt and olive oil ice cream. Frangipane, fig, wild berry and sage with infused cream.

I am appreciating community and the smallness of life a lot at the moment. The feeling of knowing your neighbours and the sharing of time, meals and skills is really appealing to me. I am at somewhat of a crossroads right now. My family are moving away from a village that I have really got to know and love in the last few years, moving to somewhere that I don’t recognise and have no memories of. A part of me panics at the mere thought of moving. I am a creature of habit in all things. I like routine and I like to know everything that is going to happen in the weeks ahead. A part of me wishes I could just do the same thing for years on end. But then another part of me remembers that I am young. It may not feel like it, but I am still in the stage of life where I don’t have set direction. That I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. No matter how hard I try to kid myself, there is so much uncertainty in life. 

And I find myself reminiscing about the places I have left. The people I have known and the memories that I have. Would I be so sentimental if I was still in those places? Is there ever a point where I stop myself from growing and learning because of my fear of the unknown? I think there is a balance to find between my want for routine and familiarity and my growth as a person. All that is to say, I am terrified of leaving this incredible, special community that I have found, but maybe I should be excited too. After all, I am my own person. I shouldn’t define myself on the connections I have with others, but instead allow my individuality to shine through so that those people that I think so much of see me the way I see them. 

I have did a few shifts in as catering help recently for a little yoga retreat. I was struck by this couples business model and how well it worked. In a small town on the border of Wales sits a village and in that village is a chapel that has been made into a bed and breakfast. But not only this, it also acts as a gallery space for artists to showcase their work, and, as I said, a retreat space. The kitchen is beautiful. Organisation that I could only dream of; recycled pesto jars as home-ground spice containers, food stock in the quantities that it can be rotated on the shelves alike in bigger businesses. All this is to say, these two people had created a thriving business that I was grateful to be a part of. 

We followed a similar recipe list to the things they often make. Starting off by prepping a big butternut squash soup. Toasting the spices, throwing everything else in together under a homemade stock and banged in the oven. Blending it until it was smooth and silky and then slowly dripping coconut milk into the food processor emulsifying it with the fat.This was topped with crispy sage leaves and served alongside a sourdough loaf. The soup was decadent, creamy and had a nice kick that hit the back of your throat.

We worked on a lot of small plates after that. The retreat was small enough that everyone could sit round one big table and it made the catering experience more intimate and more creative. A sticky soy honey miso glaze topped whole carrots as they lay on a bed of butterbean mash. Roasted tomatoes and homemade burrata (which I had never done before and was very time consuming!) Whipped feta with grilled courgette and pickled red onion. And to top off this stunning array of small lunch plates, a caramelised white onion and halloumi quiche. Side note: caramelising onions, the proper way, is one of the things that brings me the most joy. I used to not have the patience and would up the heat too soon or lose confidence that I was doing it right, but recently it has been such a thrill for me to go through the whole process watching as each stage of caramelisation changes them. 

The cakes and desserts too were beautiful. My co-chef cracked on with those while I did the meals so all I ended up seeing was the end product, but they were some beautiful cakes. The unspoken theme was ‘foraging’. An apple cake served with a brandy cream, the most delicious courgette cake that needed no accompaniment, and finally a fig and wild berry frangipane (a little on the dry side, but we move). These were all showstoppers. I was bowled over by the quality of food for such a reasonably priced retreat. 

The thing that struck me most about spending that time working on the retreat was the communities that were built around it. Not only did the hosts know everyone who came beforehand (through yoga classes, life events or just village camaraderie), but they all brought unique perspective and stories to the group. This is what I am craving right now, and weirdly, it is something that I already have. The friendships I have built around the the UK are all so different, but I cherish them all for the same reason: the uniqueness of found community to make you feel at home. 

I find myself at a loss at how to end this one. I don’t think I’m really saying anything innovative when I say that community and growth are not independent ideas. You don’t need to leave town and start again every time you feel yourself slipping into similar routines. But that is where I find myself. For one reason or another, my sense of home has been quite disruptive these last few years. I have settled in three places only to be forcibly ejected from them. Twice I have nurtured connections that I hope I keep for my whole life. A part of me is ready for something big to happen, but another, equally important part wants to live in a small community and give my skillset, no matter how small, to the people who make it work.