Hello and welcome back to my monthly letter of all things food, books and creativity and just things in general that have inspired me this past month.
I’m so happy you’re here, i hope my words resonate with you and you find some quiet time just for you to read.
I feel like my newsletter has evolved over the last few months, this last month especially. I updated my About page with some more relavant information, so if you are curious you can read a bit more about my and this newsletter here.
Just in case you are new here: welcome, i am very happy that you are here. This is my newsletter. Once a month i share a letter, filled with things that have inspired me this past month, things that i loved and some of my favourites. And about twice a month i write about thoughts and feelings from my perspective as a 20 year old trying to make sense of the world through words.
If my words resonate with you, why don’t you stick around and subscribe?
This newsletter is no longer only monthly letters filled with favourites but i have also found that i have much more to write and share and the more i write and share, the more ideas come what else i could write about. Writing used to be a huge part of me, a few days ago i found a future essay from when i was 11 or so and my dream was to become a writer. At some point, i don’t remeber it happening, i’m sure it was a gradual process, i drifted away from writng, i didn’t feel good enough, comments from teachers gave my little writer the last push of the cliff and my words were extinguished. Over the last 4 months i have slowly found my writing voice again and with it came so much inspiration and freedom, i feel like a whole new world has (re) opened. I guess what i want to say is that i am happy that you are here to bear witness to my writing journey, and i am so glad that you are sticking around even though this space here is ever changing (if you don’t like it here anymore and choose to leave, for whatever reason, there are no hard feelings!)
Ok, now lets get into the actual purpose of this letter!
Food
this is my favourite section of this monthly letter. And i have been waiting almost all month to share this one meal with you that i came up with!
Loaded Sweet Potatoe with spinach, kale and green bean with a tahini sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds and rocket (if you want a more detailed recipe just let me know!).
I can’t even describe how delicious this was! I seasoned the veggies with Ras el Hanout and garlic. Gosh, my mouth is watering just from writing this! :)
I’ve been in a blueberry phase, which is fair enough since it’s blueberry season. I’m lucky enough to live in a place where wild blueberries grow and we picked 500g of blueberries from the woods so that I could make a vegan blueberry no bake “cheese”cake. If you like coconut you will love this cake! I used this recipe.
I also had blueberry porridge and added them to my smoothies.Big blueberry loveeee.
Oh and the other night i made bruschetta but with a twist. I don’t know if this will make Italians cringe, and to be honest i don’t know exactly what is originally in bruschetta and what we as non Italians have added over time, all this to say that i added some sliced up onion and parsley to the tomatoes and olive oil. It was rather tasty on some toasted slices of bread.
Books
Every month i am conflicted wether i should only mention the books that i have finshied reading or also mention the ones i am currently reading. With the possibility of repeating myself next month, i’ve decided to also talk about the books i’m curerntly reading seeing as how i only finshied one book this month….
That book was Room by Emma Donoghue*. Gosh, this book. I don’t really have words for it. It was heartbreaking, shocking and also hopeful and beautiful. I was hoocked to say the least. iykyk.
I am reading two other books at the moment: Untamed by Glennon Doyle and Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
Untamed was a very spontaneous buy, i had a book voucher and saw this one on the shelves and i’m so glad i bought it. So far it’s been such a good read, really important and valuable lessons are in there and i sort of feel stronger as a woman reading it, i don’t know if that even makes any sense.
And Rebecca. Who knew the writing would be so beautiful! There was a whole page describing the Happy Valley, a path through bushes of sweet smelling azaleas, nothing happens but i could see this path before me as if i was there. I’m almot half way and while nothing much has happened plot wise, i’m still deeply enthralled in the story.
*i have linked all the books so that if you want to read what they are about you can. (The link will take you straight to Goodreads)
Creative
Last month i said that i wanted to share more of my art work here. Then i chickened out. On Instagram i even promised a full post with illustrations from a drawing challenge i participatd in but i could’t find the courage to share any of them.
The topic of the art challenge was animal adventures and there was a promt for every day of the week. I did 5 illustrations in the end. I will share two of them here, if i don’t overthink it all again, but if you are reading this, i guess i was brave enough to put myself out there (yay me!).
Ive also been illustrating little cards, wintery christmassy cards, not quite in season i know, but i’m going to sell them at a Christmas market in November and wanted to have them ready on time. I’m enjoying them a lot, you can see one of the designs in the image above.
Not a lot of knitting or crocheting going on, haven’t been in the mood for that.
But lots of writing! And i’m loving it! Most things i have written you can read here on substack by the way;)
What Else?
Have you seen what
and have made over at ? Their free canva branding bundle is great! I don’t know if you noticed but i have made some changes to the graphics of Meadow Journal and i had so much fun designing them. If you have a Substack i totally recommend going to have a look!Ive been a lot more active on the Notes section here on Substack. If you don’t know what that is, its a feature, a bit like twitter where i like to share moments from my day, what i am currently writing or other peoples work. The best bit is connectiong with other people. Not so much on my own posts but under other peoples threads i’ve had some great conversations with like minded people. The Notes featere is easily accesed through the Substack app, i’d love to see you there:)
Inspiration
This month i had the glorius idea to save posts that i liked to share them with you (i know i’m a genius…:)). So here are a bunch of different posts that i really enjoyed reading, that resonated with me and inspired me:
Hmm, i don’t like the way these posts are presented, i don’T know of another way though, anyone?
However i recommend you read these posts:)
That concludes this months letter. I am always super grateful for likes comments (i love hearing from you!) and shares:).
I hope August treats you well <3
See you in the next letter, or on Notes,
Pippa xxx
Thank you so much for mentioning me! What a great lineup to be a part of.
Hey Pippa, thanks so much for including my post! Just followed you on Instagram and I love the quote on your About page. I completely resonate with it.