Tea & a catch up with me ❤️
good news & gutting news & glimmers in between
Hiya friends. How have you been these last few months? I’m sorry it’s been an age since you’ve heard from me. Truly grateful that you’re still here. Thank you.
And to my paid subscribers, I paused your monthly subscription payments, thank you for your support, I’m back now and got so much deliciousness coming up for you ❤️
Today - as tis the season for sniffles and shivers - I’ve got two immunity supporting tea recipes (and ideas for how to turn the teas into noodle soups and warming winter smoothies). You know me, I love leftovers and any opportunity to roll one thing over to make something else tasty, I’m all over it.
I’m currently squeezed on the sofa at my local yoga studio as they’ve got really strong radiators and there’s a meditation class starting shortly which I’m hoping to get into. There’s a waiting list for the class, wish me luck!
Side note - I’ve noticed that meditation classes and the slow gentle restorative yoga classes are much more popular these days. I suppose that’s a good thing with more of us prioritising our mental health but I suspect many more of us are finding life increasingly challenging too.
I wrote this newsletter and it was scheduled to send out to you on Thursday eve - it being Saturday afternoon now - and then as I closed my laptop ready to get dinner going, my phone rang with terrible news, read on for more…
So…where have I been!?
Well, probably easiest if I break it down into chapters to try and explain it a little less chaotically than I experienced it…
Family news In September, two of my loved ones found out they weren’t at all well and needed urgent surgeries. So straight away we changed work and life plans to be there for them. Fingers and toes crossed, they are doing much better as they recover.
Then, after worrying about her for the last 6 months and being on “lump and bump watch” our sweet girl Nelly - our 11 year old Staffordshire bull terrier who I know lots of you adore from afar and ask after - finally had an oncologist confirm that her suspected lumps and bumps (that the vets kept saying were just cysts and fatty tissue) turned out to be a mast cell tumour. One was on the base of her tail so sadly her tail was amputated in September and results confirmed she has low grade lymphoma. If you have sadly had to go through a lymphoma diagnosis with your sweet pets, I’m so sorry and I’d love to hear any tips you might have for taking care of them.
We’ve been focussing on feeding Nelly (quite similarly to how we eat ourselves actually) lots of oily fish, flaxseed, seaweed, turmeric, lots of organic collagen rich bone broth, cooked squash and vegetables. Plus lots of cuddles, gentle walks and relaxing music. On that note ….see what I did there?… if anyone needs some good soulful tunes, search ‘solfeggio frequencies’ in spotify or youtube. Solfeggio frequencies are unique sound patterns that are said to be calming and healing for mind and body. I first found out about them post C section surgery and as a family we all love listening to them as we wind down for bedtime. Whether you believe in them or not, they sound pretty good to my ears and definitely make my baby nod off quickly plus they soothed my trembling dog in fireworks season, so I can’t argue with that. Let me know if you have a positive experience listening to them?
Now onto the gutting work news
Bit of background first. As you know, after pouring my heart and soul into working on a collab range of real food ready meals, they officially launched to fantastic feedback in September. I was thrilled! A very happy tired proud time. I worked on this range through zero maternity leave and along with a team, researched, developed and did tasting after tasting alongside writing my cookbook and taking care of a newborn. Looking back, I can’t believe I coped with that level of pressure (I’m sure this is the same for many, especially self employed people, we don’t often have a choice to rain check on work opportunities) but I so believed in it and I was so so proud of it and excited for you to be able to buy healthy ready meals for those nights that you just had no energy to cook. In this very newsletter, I was going to let you know my happy news that 2 of the 5 of the bestselling meals had just gone live on Ocado* and they were selling like hotcakes, it was even apparently the best week of sales in their history of sales for the brand I collaborated with. *International friends, Ocado is a huge UK online shop that sells brands big and small. But then the phone rang that night..…
Devastatingly for everyone involved, the news was to inform me that the brand I partnered with, the B-corp food pioneers, allplants, have gone into administration. The factory has closed down and the brilliant staff have sadly lost their jobs. I’ve lost two years of income. I’d received a small up-front fee and contractually set to receive a royalty for every future meal sold. Thousands of my meals have now been sold, all with my excited and proud face on the packaging, but I will now not receive a penny for my efforts. I am heartbroken.
It’s a live situation and I’m mostly in the dark about it as it’s not my company but I do know that whilst I will not make any money from the meals, they are available via the allplants website while stocks last (potentially at a discount - a "closing down sale"), and also on Ocado (again, whilst stocks last). So if you liked them, please do fill your boots because they are brilliant products (real food ingredients, 15 plant points in each meal, nutritionally balanced etc) and I’m so glad you have enjoyed them. This is cheering and definitely lifting my spirits to know they hit the spot with you. It’s going to take me a while to ‘get over this’ giant setback but I’d mostly like to thank all of you who supported my range and I really hope I’ll get the chance to feed you again one day.
Glimmers and good news
I learnt recently that a glimmer is a micromoment of joy. Those lovely seconds when you feel a rush of goodwill or you feel grounded / happy / grateful and you feel awe or aliveness and in love with the world. There’s been plenty of them in amongst the heartache. And the more I notice and appreciate the glimmers, the more I seem to find or they find me. How about you?
It feels like the depths of winter ( bookmark all these soup recipes ) but according to the calendar, we are still a month from the winter solstice on December 21st. ( I love celebrating solstices, does anyone else? My daughter Summer was due to be born on the summer solstice, June 21st, which inspired her name, but she arrived slightly dramatically the week before). I’ve always felt like Autumn is my season - it seems to be the time of year I feel most myself and seem to be most kind to myself (if that makes any sense?). So apart from the series of downs, I’ve really had many blessings to count over the last few months - my birthday has been and gone - hello fellow Virgos, hope you were spoilt rotten, I had SUCH a good undisturbed nap that day - and lots of my loved ones celebrate their birthdays too this time of year (likely the same for you as mid Sept-mid Oct is the most popular birth time in UK and US) so there’s been lots of cake-fuelled afternoons and moments to ‘cheers’ and sing ‘for she’s/he’s a jolly good fellooooooowwwww and so say all of us!”.
When Henry went abroad to take care of a loved one earlier this month, I headed to my Mums home in the suburbs of London for a week so she could help me with Summer while I worked from hers. We ate so much nourishing filipino food like this crispy garlic rice soup and mum’s crowd pleasing bangers (chicken adobo and pancit noodles).
In tagalog (the official language of the Philippines 🇵🇭 ), granny is LOLA and Summer says YOYA! YOYA! as her L’s are very charmingly Ys and Ns. NELLY is NENNY! Every day, on that week back home, I took Summer to the library I grew up in where I spent many hours happily alone and curled up on a stack of floppy beanbags in the corner with a whole world of adventures at my fingertips. And for free! 25 years later, the beanbags are no more but it’s still as peaceful and welcoming as I remember. I also got to see my cookbooks in the library - what a rush :) - but was too shy to ask if they wanted me to sign them because I know that bookshops like us authors to sign our books but didn’t know if it was the done thing in libraries!? My Mum is insisting I go back and sign them. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s called them up to have a chat about it. Love you, Mum. And shout out to all the librarians out there, thank you for the books and the beanbags. Long live libraries, they are vital for so many of all ages.
Speaking of my book..…thanks to you beauties… as well as a Number 1 sales position on Amazon, I’m chuffed to say *Real Healthy: unprocess your diet with easy everyday recipes* is a Sunday Times bestseller(!) and so the new print runs of my book look like this…
If you haven’t got a copy yet, here’s a little look at my book with Professor Tim Spector’s words ‘a delicious guide to eating the healthy way’, a foreword from nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert and lovely reviews from Yotam Ottolenghi and Tom Kerridge and others too. I know lots of us are on a mission to cut back on ultra-processed foods and reap the benefits of whole foods.
Onto some warming recipes to save for the winter. Do you find it easier to get dehydrated in the colder months as it’s harder to remember to drink anything other than wine, hot chocolate and coffee? Hoping these could be the solution:
Cosy Tea Recipes Well technically they are infusions
1. A Golden Immunity and Digestion Supporting Tea
2 tbsp grated fresh ginger - if organic, I don’t bother peeling
1 cinnamon stick or 1 tsp ground cinnamon*
1 tsp ground turmeric*
½ tsp black pepper
juice of ½ lemon
Steep for 5 minutes in hot but not boiling water, then pour yourself a mug and put your feet up. I rebrew this tea several times throughout the day. Sweeten with a little raw honey if you like.
If you have any leftovers, use this as a base for soup. Add it to a saucepan with a tbsp of miso and some grated garlic and serve up with noodles, leftover veg or veg from the freezer and perhaps a jammy boiled egg on top.
*worth looking out for Fairtrade or ethically sourced spices where you can
2. Refreshing & vitamin C rich Mint and Hibiscus Tea
Handful fresh mint
1 tbsp dried hibiscus or hibiscus teabag, alternatively I like cranberry
Juice of ½ lime
Let steep for 5 minutes, add a little honey to taste, then pour yourself a mug and enjoy! If you have any leftovers, use this as a base for a smoothie. I love it blended it with banana, frozen cauliflower and berries. Truly delish.
And as I was finishing up this newsletter, I spotted this image above, posted by my friend, the neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart which is worth a screenshot on your phone for the next time you want to pick n mix herbs and spices from your cupboards to make your own delicious bespoke infusions. Incidentally, lemon balm, part of the mint family - scientific name “Melissa officinalis” - which makes me chuckle as it’s said to have calming properties and be great for memory support (I personally am the least calm person I know and with the worst memory to boot). I did have a lemon balm plant which did last a few years before it died so I’ve been buying dried loose leaves (when less lazy) or these teabags and also love all the teas here from this fantastic independent shop in south London that’s been going strong for 180 years and is well worth supporting.
I’ll be back again next week with more warming cosy recipes, I’ve got a backlog of amazing things to make our hearts sing to share with you. This has been a super long newsletter - in fact I get a pop up saying I was nearing the text limit (!) - as lots to catch up on. I’ll keep things shorter and sweeter in future but you know I like to ramble away but I respect your time.
Thanks as always for being here - through the ups and the downs - and I hope you find many uplifting glimmers yourself this week.
All my bestest,
Melissa
Jeez Melissa, that's such a huge amount to deal with. I hope you are all doing ok. Much love from Devon xx
That's a lot for anyone to contend with! So sorry this has happened & I hope that brighter things are coming your way. Be gentle with yourself x