In Pursuit of the Glow

Dearest children, Second year blooms in front of me like a carrion flower: a beautiful, red blossom that opens to behold the smell of rotting corpse. Dampen your enthusiasm, Samantha, I hear you squeal! I jest. It has been a long, hot summer (thanks, caroline.) filled with placement which I am SO SORRY I HAVEN'T TOLD YOU ABOUT but was definitely a very mixed bag, meeting M's parents which was so so exciting and so so nerve wracking, seeing my momma and my sisters and chilling out on the beach, obsessing over eating too much ice cream and grabbing my stomach surreptitiously, and eating more ice cream. how was your guys's summer? <3 But now, second year is starting, my babies, and the truth is slugging me on the face and leaving low-fat margarine tears to drip down my skin: this year counts. I can no longer while away endless wednesday evenings drinking straight vodka to minimise my sugar intake before Citrus; early thursday mornings eating piles of toast and

My friends, I will be brief on this fine day. I have honed you this highly delicious recipe and I hope dearly that you will love me forever for making the rest of your life - previously a dark, banana cookie-less, dry landscape - so deliciously moist, nutty, and chocolaty. Yes. I am going to give you this recipe and then go and attempt to do my haematology lab. I am, for a short time, solo in my accommodation as everyone has gone home and my flight leaves later this week. I am reallyyy loving it BUT  I found yesterday I was really just eating all day and that's BAD. I finished a tub of halotop mint chip (I LOVE MINT CHIP, IT IS MY FAVOURITE FLAVOUR EVERRR), half a batch of these cookies... oh well. I did enjoy them. :) Today, at least, I did some LOVELY power yoga, a bums & tums class, and made a bowl of many delicious green things which I will post in a What-I-eat-in-a-day ASAP as it included something v greek and v delicious. Also rolled around in grassy bit near house a

Hey babies! How are you all? I am promising myself that I will try and be more regular on here because I love writing bloggies so much. Maybe it will tether me to some semblance of regularity and routine in this crazy life, where I feel as if I am doing so much, and yet doing so little (i.e sitting in front of netflix drinking almond milk and maple syrup while scrolling through asos). Ever since I've come back from Christmas break at home, I have done some morally questionable things, my babies. Remember how I mentioned tesco boy? Well, everything was going swell - he was being cute and he came to my gospel choir concert, he got me a christmassy little elf hat, he bought me nutella hot chocolate and he WANTS TO JOIN THE RAF (Ik guys. Possibly, completely shallow but this pleased me endlessly due to my mental associations with tres mignon , sefless military boys and the opening scene to Peter Pan). And trust me, I was pursuing him. But there was this niggling little thought in t

Hello, lovelies! I can't quite believe that I'm saying this, but I am at university!! Summer is definitely over, though the weather here has actually been so beautiful - and I'm experiencing my first ever autumn, where the leaves are gorgeous and red and crispy and they're EVERYWHERE. I'm studying nutrition and dietetics at the University of Surrey and I'm writing this as I get ready to go to one of my *ahem* least favourite lectures: biochemistry. I know that it may be obvious to some people that chemistry is the BACKBONE of a course that EXPLORES HOW FOOD REACTS WITH OUR BODY but I think I missed the memo :'( Anyway, I'm muddling along, and obviously not always healthily - sometimes, back from nights out with my mates, I'll binge out on dates and peanut butter (uhm... thank you god for kilo tubs) and I can definitely feel that I've filled out a bit. But that's alright. I'm also the happiest I've ever been in my life, so I'

Hello, my lovelies. Long time no see - but I have finished my exams (!), done well (!!), and I am heading to my dream uni this September to study nutrition and dietetics!! So this summer, I am chilling out (read: being completely and utterly lazy) and I write this as I sit at my great-aunt's house after a day of baking! As I stuffed my face with completely non-healthy yummy things and simultaneously felt guilty and laughed and made gifs with my cousins, I realized: while I truly love eating healthy most of the time, its okay to sometimes just go with the flow, and if you are faced with sweet, sugary things one day (or in may case, quite a few days this summer) you can eat them. And its okay if you eat too many some days, or feel crazy full, or feel angry at yourself for eating too much. You'll find balance, but it takes a long time. I'll be honest - I find it really hard to find balance and sometimes I eat way too much! I'm working on that, and I'm also wo

Hello, my lovely friends. Would you like to have a slice of this beautiful, tender cake studded with raspberries and happiness? Oh, you do? Hah - I have eaten it all. Sorry.  I have just began school, and thus cake has never been so needed.  Yesterday was Friday, thank the gods, and I faffed around for like 2 hours in the kitchen making this cake!! Don't worry, though: it actually takes about 10 minutes for a normal person. I'm just a very slow (words like  annoyingly sloth-like have been thrown around) human in the kitchen. It was so worth it, though! I'm pretty sure this cake is my favourite thing, like, ever. I used rice flour because that is what David from Green Kitchen Stories used, and he is awesome, but I'm pretty sure you could sub with wholewheat. The texture is so tender and moist, and while remaining light and fluffy, the ground almonds give it a substantiality and a delicious nutty flavour. Along with the light coconut undertones, and just