Hello!
My name is Anya. I am Russian by origin, doing my Master’s in English Language and Culture in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Say cheese!
Here is why I started this blog, Godful Food. (On a side note: every now and then, I take such liberty as to invent my own English word to correspond more accurately what I mean. So ‘godful’ is one such word, meaning something very, very good and beyond that. Please note that this concept refers to good, fresh, honest food as a whole, not necessarily to meals that come from my own kitchen, which are, positively, not bad either. Really.)
When I was 21, I went abroad for the first time. I took a gap year from my then Bachelor’s studies back in university in Russia, and went to Holland to work as an au-pair (baby-sitter). It was then when I understood I really love food, what with enormous varieties of goods I had never heard of and seen before, let alone cooked and tasted. Talk about curious and ever-hungry - not so much for food itself as for new experiences and sensations it promises and delivers. Of course, I wanted to try it all. To learn about it as much as I could. At the same time, due to circumstances of a personal nature, I was made feel ashamed of the intensity of my then newly-discovered love for food, and frequency with which I used to talk about it. (What's wrong with you? Why do you always talk about food?)
I decided to prove wrong the people who did not share my enthusiasm in the kitchen and at the table – after all, I did not want to be mocked at. So I starved myself. Within 6 months, I lost 30 kilos of healthy weight, and damaged my health, goodness me. (At the start, my weight was 80 kilos – and I am 180cm in height, and by the end of my year abroad, I weighed mere 50 kilos; and I still kept losing my - already precious - weight.) I was neither anorexic nor bulimic (probably, I was that close). I stupidly starved myself - that was it. And also, I did not drink water. So, I reckon, I rather stupidly dehydrated myself as well. I knew I was in trouble. (I inadvertently scared and hurt my parents a great deal, too: my mother bursted out into tears when she and my father met me at the airport after the year in question, and kept crying for weeks after that.) My other problem was that I did not know how to get back to my normal weight without putting much extra. That was when the sensible powers of Universe intervened and I found a book that literally saved my life. The book is one of a few by M.Guiliano, ‘French Women Don’t Get Fat’. From it, I got my answers. It helped me to regain my senses. But what’s more, I stopped being ashamed of my own nature. I stopped to deny myself. I learn to be proud of who I am.
I cook. I eat. I share. I write. These are my passions.
If you have any questions, or feel like saying hi, here is my e-address: godfulfood AT gmail DOT com
Thank you for stopping by. It means a lot to me.
Anya
