Finding Hope in a Hellscape

Scrapings of joy from the corners of Hope’s Kitchen.

Last week I republished an old newsletter rather than write something new for two reasons. The first was to reintroduce Weekend Wonders, One Meal Endless Flavours, which shall be returning to your inbox later this week. The second reason was the Epstein files and the manner in which they are being reported and responded to (or not) by the establishment. This paralysed my mind with fury and disgust every time I tried to write about it, and it didn’t feel to me that there was anything much else worth writing about.

I am grateful to the many people who have found the words (or memes) to communicate some of the horror. Personally I have found myself sinking further, day by day into hands up head shaking muteness, not simply because of the details being revealed but because no consequences are being meted out. Not one arrest. No assets frozen. Andrew lost his title (with a downsizing of his rent free accommodation) and Mandelsen his job (with an alleged 5 figure payoff). And then the Times magazine cover from the weekend ‘Peter Mandelson “I’ve had some bad luck, some of it of my own making” From ambassadorial accommodation to Wiltshire domesticity’ by Katy Balls WRITTEN BY A WOMAN did for me. Where are the stories and voices of the countless victims, where is their justice?

And this is the brutal truth of the matter. As colonial wars, genocides, exploitations and removal of resources will continue, so shall the protection of the ‘men’ who manage and maintain this status quo, as has been the case for over 400 years. Why would they stop and change it now?

The system we live by will only uphold these men. It was literally built to protect them, we are being shown proof of this fact day by agonising day. The only path to liberation is the one that leads to abolition. Abolition of the current system of power and control. No small thing to work towards with hope. But do so we must.

And so, here we all are, in Hope’s Kitchen, and I am so grateful for this space to communicate out loud some of these heavy, heavy thoughts. Your thoughts are always most welcome too, if it would help you to share them, there is always a comments section at the end of the newsletter and I always read them and reply.

Here then is the question for today, amongst all this paralysing misery - Where are we currently finding hope? I’ve been scrabbling around in my metaphorical kitchen and struggling at times to find its glimmers. This hasn’t been helped by my hormones flatlining leaving me experiencing anhedonia for the last 6 weeks which has left me, literally, with no joy. At all. In anything. This is very unlike me. I have been prone to bouts of depression my whole life but in recent years have become pretty expert at finding joy in the tiny inconsequential things, most frequently food based (hence this newsletter) but of late not even food has lifted my mood - which explains the recent lack of new recipes to share.

While this has been difficult, upsetting and frustrating, I am grateful for the fact that as I had been focussing on improving my physical health, I have found it relatively straightforward to expand this focus to include my mental and emotional health too and here is a list of what’s been helping me, in way of celebrating the fact and also incase any of it might be of benefit to anyone reading here.

I have mentioned before Libby, the free library app where you can borrow audio books (and e-books, magazines and newspapers). I gave up audible last year (Amazon - please if you undertake no other action against the state that is slowly killing us all, please let your one action be not giving any money to Amazon and Bezos. Bezos wants Amazon to be the ‘last shop’ meaning ending all other online outlets and with their current share of upwards of 30% of the UK online market, it’s possible that this isn’t the batshit crazy prospect it may initially seem to be. One of their methods of taking over currently is being supported by Shopify, whose tag line is ‘Your Ideas, Our Platform’ only now they’re giving full back door access to all their customers online stores to Amazon so that they can mine those very same ideas. Amazon have been lifting products from sites and listing them within their own website, customers who want to buy these products are sent to the original domain, so they aren’t exactly stealing sales, not yet. What they are doing is measuring and assessing the success of these products. If they see a volume of sales worth having they will clone the product and make their own, dumping the Shopify link and original work as they go. Bezos, the man who thought it appropriate to book the whole of Venice for his wedding, has no shame, he’s told us so over and over again. Please take heed and respond accordingly. Money is the only language he speaks, use yours to amplify voices that can make meaningful change rather than those who that have us in a death grip.)

The other reason I dumped audible was because I get through audio books at such a rate I was regularly using the free ‘plus’ catalogue which, while it does sometimes contain books worth listening to, is also populated with a lot of trash, and listening to trash crime fiction was slowly rotting my mind. I have recently complimented the Libby app with signing up for Libro FM an independent book shop supporting alternative to audible that allows you to nominate the independent bookshop your money will go to, it’s brilliant.

While these system changes have brought me hope and joy, it doesn’t match the joy and distraction brought by the books I’ve listened to so far this year, which are in no particular order via Libby (free) and for context I like to listen to ‘light’ tomes, Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus, Blood Over Bright Haven, M.L Wang And Hunting Shadows, Charles Todd (current listen).

On Libro FM, where I signed up for a £7.99 one book a month deal and received 2 free credits I have listened to A Murder For Miss Hortense, Mel Pennant and Vera Wongs Guide To Snooping (On A Dead Man), Jesse Sutanto - these last two were recommendations from the excellent free newsletter Shelf Improvement written by my friend Elizabeth who is a bookshop manager and avid reader and makes excellent recommendations, giving just enough detail of the book, without spoilers, to let you know if you’ll enjoy it. Both the recommendations listed are in the new highly enjoyable and thankfully growing ‘crime with food’ genre, yes it really is a thing and yes I love it very much. Both these books feature elder women amateur detectives who in the case of Miss Hortense share actual recipes within the story, while Vera Wong coerces information from unsuspecting souls via her delicious home cooked Chinese food, which we readers get to enjoy delicious descriptions of.

While I listen to books on walks and when working, I love to listen to them most while jigsawing. I have a busy head and find switching off very hard. My current practice is to do half an hour of a jigsaw with audio book accompaniment on returning home from work - the prospect gives me a little heart lift as I clean down the kitchen and mop the floor before leaving. I find a bit of time with a jigsaw a very helpful decompress regardless of how tired I am. Plus it helps me not get stuck on my phone, which is where I have historically gone for that sort of brain reset. I am aware that jigsaws are some people’s idea of hell, I recently laughed out loud at a friends voice message response to my texted enquiry as to whether or not a jigsaw in the post might help her through a difficult time ‘why on earth people like putting together little bits of patterned cardboard I do not know’ they aren’t for everyone!

Not using my phone is massively helping me to retain hope. I have found that already my capacity to concentrate has improved, I’m able to sit up in bed for a couple of hours after retiring to read - unheard of since my 20s. It seems that reading is a muscle that can be exercised. I’m very happy about this and have read two novels already this year - Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Stroud and The Glass Maker, Tracy Chevalier. Being able to read novels again (I lost the skill when I became a mum) is making me very happy, especially since I never lost the skill of buying books, so I’ve an enormous pile to get through. I delete social media after posting, install it again to check on messages and comments. I think I mentioned before that I have had a steady increase in followers since doing this, whether this is to keep me entwined in its snares or a response to me being more ‘active’ in the short bursts when I am on it I do not know. If it’s an action you’ve been considering, then I urge you to do so. You will absolutely feel better for it.

When I get home and have my half hour jigsaw time (about to start jigsaw number 6 of the year) I have a hot drink, sometimes this is hot chocolate, a new habit that can keep me smiling and hopeful in anticipation all the way home. At the moment I am enjoying the Clipper instant hot chocolate but am open to recommendations, if you have any.

On Thursday mornings I go to a somatic yoga class run by Jane Dancey, an inspiring and thoughtful instructor who guides us through a powerful and releasing hour of reconnecting with our minds and bodies in front of her wood burner in Firle. These sessions have given me hope in the healing power of mind body connection. The Quigong classes I started last year began again last week, these both are definitely life practices for me, and the physicality of each are helping to keep me hopeful. I appreciate that such sessions cost money, I am currently focussing hard on getting myself well and am able to make savings in other areas so that I can prioritise the classes, which together cost roughly £100 a month, a stretch nonetheless. There are a wealth of resources online, often free (with ads) some fitness subscriptions working out at just a few pounds a month. Good physical health supports good mental health and you can’t keep hope buoyant without either.

The Prentis Hemphill podcast Becoming The People is filling me with hope and this is my strongest recommendation. Prentis Hemphills book What It Takes To Heal has been quoted here more than once, I really do recommend it to anyone feeling the acute pain of living through these times. As I do their new podcast and the archive of their previous pod Finding Our Way (which has confusingly gained the new pods title, I guess since they are using the same domain and platform - basically any episodes before January 2026 are Finding Our Way, all since then are Becoming The People, it’s all good stuff, so you can’t go wrong). As the blurb says ‘Prentis is in conversation with the thinkers, creators, and doers who are exploring some of the most relevant questions of our time: What will it take for us to change as a species? How do we create relationships that lead to collective transformation, and what will it take for us to heal?’ I recommend starting with this episode where Prentis is in conversation with the chef and food writer Samin Nosrat. The format of the Becoming The People podcast is for an interview one week followed by a short thought piece from Prentis the next. I listened to the mini episode Finding Meaning And Action, and found Prentis’s assertion that we suffer burn out when we don’t act just as we do if we act too much a very helpful message this last week, it’s helped to shift me from fear and fury based inertia and inaction into feeling that making change is possible.

Which brings me to my last hopeful share - community. Of course it is community. I am extremely grateful for the community I have around me for work, made up as it is of customers and clients who buy from me as much as those I buy from. They so very often get what it is I try to communicate with the food and products I make for sale. This shone through most helpfully for me this last week with one customer getting in touch to see if I might be able to offer my kitchen or skills to some of the asylum seekers currently housed in the army encampment in Crowborough who have expressed a want to cook, the answer being absolutely yes, thanks so much for thinking of me. I made a visit to the home and new growing plot of my friend Rachel, a market gardener whose pumpkin I roasted for Seedy Saturdays soup and I visited Barcombe Nurseries to collect more vegetables for the same menu and had a good chat, as always, with Vic who heads their veg box scheme amongst other things.

Hope has been coming in waves via teaching workshops - I absolutely love love LOVE the human connection that occurs when groups of strangers get together to cook and share food, and have plans for a Walk, Talk, Eat in person meet up when the weather starts to improve. And I am feeling huge hope through the gigs I have lined up in February. Seedy Saturday, run by Common Cause took place this weekend, I’ve run the cafe for the last seven or so years. It’s such a joyous day of seed swapping and tool sharpening and planning for the growing year to come. This coming Saturday I will cater the Sussex Biodiversity Conference, the annual coming together of county wide wildlife projects to share their research and findings - a joy of a crowd to feed. The following week will be my monthly Friday Food Delivery, which always makes my heart sing and feels likely to do so even more now I’m only doing it once a week. And then I feed a schools worth of teachers for an inset day before finishing the month on a local nature reserve feeding soup to 100 National Trust volunteers. There is much hope to be mined in all of these occasions and I feel so very lucky.

New additions coming to Hope’s Kitchen…

I will continue to share the things that keep me hopeful as I have done here - this might happen weekly in the chat function - I would love it if you felt like keeping an eye over there! I often feel like I barely use any of the facilities offered by Substack - it may be they aren’t worth using, but it’s got to be worth a try! Most importantly I would really love to hear from any of you either here in the comments or within the chat function. There is more than just me here in Hope’s Kitchen, there are 476 of us at the last count, I am confident we would get along were we to meet and chat virtually…

My paid subscription model is going to change subtly, the benefits (copies of recipe booklets, my handmade Fanzine, discount codes for workshops, pop ups and occasional products) will remain and existing paid subscribers will continue to pay £4 a month forever. As of next week subscription costs will increase to £6 a month for any new subscribers, with the benefits being promoted as an active loyalty scheme - this means an extension of certain benefits to things such as free delivery on my monthly Friday Food Deliveries plus all of the existing benefits listed above. I am making these changes because I am very keen to make real contact with the community I build here and because I want both my food business and my writing to flourish and grow their audiences. I’ve always believed in doing business outside of traditional capitalist structures, which is frequently a challenge. But I am hopeful that building a foundation income via a monthly paid loyalty scheme here through building paid subscribers will enable me to offer more of the work I want to do to you all. All published content on Substack will remain free and open access to all. I will give final notice of the subscription increase with Weekend Wonders later this week - no increase ever to existing paid subscribers, so if you have been toying with the idea of becoming one, now is a very good time! I dream of having 100 paid subscribers, it would change things such a lot for me and my working life - I currently have 38, which is amazing and I love you all!

Thanks so much for reading. I will be posting twice this week with a bundle of recipes in Weekend Wonders coming to you before the weeks end.

Love Chloe x