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Sometimes, being at culinary school, though it is completely exactly what I want to be doing at this moment in my life, can feel like a total drag. I haven’t had routine in my life for so long that now that I suddenly have this incredibly rigid structure (get to school by 9.30am, leave school by 5pm, do homework, eat some quick dinner, pass out around 10pm) it sometimes feels a little restrictive. Gone are the days when I would go out to dinner with friends willy-nilly, purely to discover new restaurants around town as and when I pleased; gone are the days of dozing in bed until late morning, raising myself to sit in front of my laptop with a mug of hot lemon and honey (still wearing PJs until the late evening by which time what was the point in even changing?) to plonk out a piece about a food event I’d attended the night before, or edit a new batch of photos.

But then when I look back on those days I see what a lack of focus I had, how lazy I was becoming. On the one hand I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted; on the other I was bored, feeling stupider and fatter by the day, and was desperately poor with no idea whether this was what I even wanted any more. These days I’m still poor but my brain feels as if it’s overloading with new and exciting information. My need to experiment has come back in full force – the other week I bought an ox tongue just for the fun of it and I’ve been making enquiries into how to get hold of a whole pig’s head to make headcheese – but the result of this is that I’ve become quieter, less social, more reclusive and a much harder worker. So maybe that’s why I’ve decided to change things up a little.

It’s easy enough to forget the person behind the blog – you see all this food and the public image they present of themselves and you often think, “wow. This person totally has their life together – look at them! They’re following their dreams! How awesome is that?”

I’ve always tried to be very honest about who I am and what I do when I write – I told you all how I nearly sliced off my finger and cry on an (almost) daily basis at school, I talk frankly about my health & my childhood and my post about my late grandfather received more responses than any other, with plenty more emails that came in quietly to share stories about other people’s own losses, and I love that. But there is plenty that I do not share. I don’t write about heartbreak or my family in great detail, I don’t share my boyfriend’s identity or where we live and I don’t tell you about the more intricate details of my school or my friends there. Why? Because there is such a thing, even in this digital age where one can document anything and everything, as oversharing and because much of my life is private and it needs to be that way, to protect myself, to protect my family and those I love.

So believe me when I say that what I’m about to tell you is a pretty big deal: I’ve agreed to be the subject of an episode in a short documentary series.

Do you remember how a while ago I was helping LA-based Good Taste & Gatherings try and get funding for their Kickstarter project, a short docu-series focussing on communities who are brought together through food? Well, unfortunately they didn’t manage to get the funding but, fortunately for them, executive producer Dawn is a go-getter and decided to fund the project herself. They filmed the pilot episode over the Christmas break, featuring Darling Magazine and their launch party and it truly was lovely. You can watch it here:

Dawn had been in touch with me just before Christmas to ask a little about my background, what I was doing at school and how food was part of my life. We had a Skype call and a lovely chat but I didn’t think too much of it until, at the beginning of the year, she touched base again to ask if I would agree to being the subject of the next episode.

So there it is. They’re coming to London in the Spring and they’re going to film me going about my life in and out of school (school have given me the tentative go-ahead for filming), and hanging out with some of my food community friends at my dear friend Uyen‘s wonderful supperclub. It’s exciting and, more importantly, it’ll be fun & will force me to show you who I really am and what I love, and really that’s why I’ve agreed to it. I’m usually the one hiding behind the camera – being in front of it is a little intimidating but at least I’ll be doing it for something I love so very dearly and with a renewed passion: food.

More details to come nearer the time – until then, peace and love.

Jax x