This is my second attempt to create a blog. The first one, Luce Perpetua, ended with my first post, it was meant to be a little blog of my thoughts but my lack of discipline and a busy life made me give the project up.
My life has come to a turning point. There comes a time in your life when you think you have done it all and now you are all nicely settled in a comfortable little life and all of a sudden things come to a halt and you don't know how to start again.
I haven't felt that purposeless and lost since I was probably 16, wondering what to do with my life. I loved music and wanted to be a concert pianist but I was scared of the fact that, having a relatively late start at 12, I was much too old and not good enough to be brilliant, as the competition in this domain is fierce with all those little 5 year old virtuosos around.
Then I was 16, with all my life ahead of me, now I am 46, with a lot of life behind me and maybe not as many years ahead of me.
I just don't know what to do with the rest of my life. I am a musician, mainly a singer but also a choir conductor and a pianist with some years practicing the harpsichord. I sang in a major opera theatre, in the choir for some years, I have been living in the UK for 8 years where I fulfilled two of my dreams: getting married and becoming a holistic therapist. My other major dream was to become a mother but after an unsuccessful IVI treatment (successful to start with but then I had a miscarriage) I don't know whether this dream is still possible to come true.
One of the things I love the most in my life is cooking. Last year I was giving Jamie Oliver parties and selling his products but with the recession hitting it became a little difficult to make any money at all through that activity. I was also disappointed with the parties, I thought it would involve some cooking and demonstrating the products but it didn't, it was merely a catalogue sale with really good products but people did not see the use in spending £20 for a chopping board if they could spend a fiver in a chain supermarket. I still think the products are great and not that expensive for the quality, but there you go.
I recently lost my father. I attended to him for his 3 last months of life. He was very ill, he couldn't eat, or shower, or walk, or even turn in bed. My father, my hero, who was always there for me was fading a little bit everyday and I couldn't help him or save him. It is the first time I have the courage to talk about it as the pain was so great I couldn't speak or comment or verbalise anything. As I type those lines, I have tears running all over my face. It is a feeling of helplessness that is inexplicable. No, we haven't got any control over our lives and no, we can't alleviate the pain of those who we love. We have to sit, watch and pray and hope that they are in a better place than we are, a place of rest, away from the afflictions of this world.
I tend to forget the world's afflictions when I sing or I cook or I listen to music. Cooking is the thing I probably enjoy the most. When I was in Brazil, I watched a film called Julie and Julia about a 40 year old woman who has the impression she has nothing in life and she sets herself a challenge: cook all Julia Child's cookbook recipes in one year. She starts a blog describing all her experiences and demonstrating the recipes. I asked myself, if she can do it, why can't I? My favourite chef is Jamie Oliver and I believe he is a genius. I am Brazilian, living in the UK, why not set myself a challenge, cook all Jamie Oliver's Great Britain recipes? There are 128 recipes to be cooked excluding the condiments chapter.
This is what I am going to do, but I will try to go further. I thought of doing that also to raise money for charity, so I thought I could make an event and cook for people to raise money for charity. I am elaborating it all for a while, to get set and started next week. Autumn and winter will certainly warm up hearts and tummies with the delicious British cuisine.
No matter what people say, I love British food with all its quirkiness and style.
Follow me up and you can see if I rise up to the challenge or not. I hope I will.
Many thanks
Gisele
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