Close your eyes. Turn your face to the first of the morning rays and feel the sun perforate your bones. Feel the wind cascade over your skin, almost like silk brushing past. Breathe in the scent of the green, tender grass. You see, it’s spring, and lockdown is not all that bad. Take this as an opportunity to rejuvenate, to renovate, and to innovate. After all, there always is time to improve and continue that journey which you must have halted on account of work or “oh! Where do I find time?”

And well, for me, this lockdown did begin as a desolate, end of the line time period, but here I am, waiting to get all of my creative juices out.

Resorting to art as my saving grace, I have pretty much undertaken a resolution of conveying art throughout this lockdown. Yes, I have drawn, I have painted, and I have composed various walks of life into poetry or pieces of paintings, but art, I realise, is so much more than a piece of paper or some tubes of colours and is so much of just expressing who we actually are and what this world means to us.

Ergo, here I was, taking culinary skills as another medium to reflect what went on with me. Rewinding back to the very beginning, on one fine, summery day, I wake to the sounds of sunbirds, showing off their silver plumage while they hop through plants under the (not Tuscan) sun. The day is golden. The wind is almost sweet. Oh! How much I wish of sipping mocktails on a warm sandy beach. If not go there, it surely can come here?

And why not? Equipped with the most À couper le souffle (pardon my french) array of fresh ingredients, pun intended, right from my potager, began my efforts to bring that crisp, summery feeling on a plane, boring white plate, now my canvas.

Tweaking recipes, reviewing menus, and taking things up a notch, here lies my summertime celebration of a period of leisurely independence and solitude rained with golden Les Matins. Finally having painted my canvas with colours of food, here is my plated dessert featuring a cinnamon Bavarian cream with a lime and mint fluid gel, cucumber gelee, macerated cucumber, salted rice crisp and dehydrated mint.

I found out that art can be food for me. Art can be blogging for me. Art can can be solitude to me, but what does art mean to you? Take time, figure out your ‘art’ and you stay safe! Au revoir folks!