About Me, 2024
Welcome to my world.
I am Robert Young, aged 55, a
veteran bachelor and I reside in the fair city of Pretoria, Republic of South
Africa. I am also a good cook; irregular food blogger, and amateur
photographer. Moreover, I am a qualified pastry chef and a fully trained chemist
– if somewhat past my ‘sell by date’. And finally, I am also a lapsed empath
and, as a consequence, fairly often manage to think for myself. Sometimes even
logically; and frequently excessively so. Also, if all goes well, I’ll be a
regular blogger again this year. I still have a few things to say apparently.
The “able to think” part was not
always thus. That came about fairly late in my life, mostly through unpleasant
and involuntary lessons – usually the result of my own emotional, social and
interpersonal stupidity or ignorance. To complicate matters even further, my
ancestral Scottish pigheadedness demanded that some lessons had to be repeated several
times. C’est la vie.
Since its inception on 15 June
2017, this blog slowly evolved into a non-chronological and
semi-autobiographical sort-off legacy project. My blog is an incomplete and generally
random record of my journey to inner self awareness as well as emotional and
spiritual maturity.
On this journey, food always
played a major role. It still does. As I suspect is the case with nearly all
foodies and cooking enthusiasts. However, over the decades, the role of food in
my life changed. When I was young, I lived to eat. Food was for various reasons
a form of emotional self-gratification – an emollient for the spirit, if you
will. With young adulthood, food assumed a lesser importance. Peer pressure,
societal awareness and an appreciation of the female of our species saw to
that. Eating itself was nevertheless still important. With full adulthood and very
slowly developing social experience, the quality; cultural origins and
technical complexity of food became important. As did culinary and intellectual
snobbery. I descended into inveterate Francophilia. In hindsight, the thirst
for culinary knowledge also became a temporary refuge from the incessant roar
of the world.
Approaching and, later, early middle age; failed relationships (romantic and otherwise) and a plethora of hard lessons brought high appreciation for solitude and simplicity. Food is still important, but now I eat to live. Being an acolyte to solitude gradually brought many advantages. Mercifully, the Francophilia died a natural, peaceful death at last. Now, I try to stand aside from the herd most days.
The brief history above includes
some of the reasons why this is not a run of the mill recipe, culinary
journalism or product review blog. Rather, it is a blend of memoir and
autobiography written from a culinary perspective. In constant development, it
is an incomplete record of my life, experiences, personal development, my
philosophies, reminiscences and evolving awarenesses, all expressed through recipe
and food related posts.
The following pages (and my
blog’s various long read style recipe posts) provide more details:`
- Why This Blog?
- Food and I
- My Cooking
- Cooking & Spirituality *
- Solitude *
- Brokenness *
- Frugality *
- A Sense of Endings *
- My Writing *
- Recipe Index
The above history (and related sub-sections)
are the reasons why my blog is not monetised with adverts, click baiting, product
endorsements and affiliate links. My blog is a labour of love and self-respect.
Therefore it will remain unsullied and true to its purpose. This is important to
me.
Feel free to peruse and read at
your leisure. If you enjoy your visit, learn anything, or take something useful
from my blog with you, I’ll be very pleased indeed. Please feel free to share my
blog with those who you know will appreciate my content.
Kind regards,
Robert
© RS Young, 2024
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