Green Tea and Chocolate

I've gone into sensory overload. Everywhere I look, I see things I want to touch, small, feel. It's a bit like getting in contact with your "experiential self", I guess.

Yesterday my latest edition of House & Leisure magazine arrived. Yeah, I drool at the homes, jaw-slack gape at the prices some people pay for "style", and garner ideas for living. But I found myself browsing those - looking and moving on.

Until I got to the food section.

What is it with me? All I want to do these days is create - and a lot of it has to do with food. I want to knead bread and eat it fresh out of the oven with real butter. I want to slow-roast things and bake things and spend hours among delicious smells and burstingly-fresh ingredients. I want the earthy, the real, the newly-plucked, the natural and hand-made.

Normally I'm intolerant of too much sugar - but now I'm after chocolate like a pig after a truffle. I want to sink my hands into a box of dark beauties and let each one melt in my mouth, licking the leftovers off my fingers.

Green tea. Yup, I'm craving that too. And proper coffee with cream (after taking a look at the ingredients in my powdered creamer, and realizing it's mostly palm oil). I want to bring back mid-morning tea rituals, and high tea with little cakes. I fantasize about tables laden with real, honest-to-goodness food and the company to share it.

It must have something to do with the season. Cocooning and Comfort Food. We're out of the stage where everything has to be light and airy and mostly water. We're heading for days of snuggling up in a furry blanket, hands wrapped around a hot drink and feet before the fire (if only!). Food gets heavier and we want to spend more time around a hot stove (let's hope the electricity holds out).

But I think it also has much to do with my inner awakening. I'm taking notice of things around me, compiling a "passion portfolio" if you will. I've been mentally bookmarking things that make me get goosebumbs or feel great, and slowly but surely knitting them into an image of who I am inside. Next step is to bring that to the surface and let it shine through. Call it an inside-out makeover!

I know all these threads are coming together bit by bit - all these loves and joys and passions slowly coagulating into a picture of Me.

Starting with green tea and chocolate. Small steps, baby, small steps.

Further Reading:
Urban Abbess on Celebrating Spring
Seth on Authenticity - a good start if you're planning on making a living from your passions!
Teaology
Sweet Potato & Chickpea Curry and Chocolate Fallen Souffle Cake from Treehugger