We are inundated with information about healthy eating, what to eat, how many portions to eat, how many calories to eat and what foods to avoid. There are tons of diets and fitness programs. Then there are people who are protesting that eating food is such an instinctive activity which has been coomercialised. However more and more restaurants are opening and people are queing up even in this credit crunch time. High street coofeeshops are becoming reading rooms but you cannot find a coffeeshop after 6pm except the pubs. It used to be fun to invite people at your home or going to a friend's house to join in the preparation of fresh cooked meals and sharing it. In short, everybody wants to eat and socialise but cooking itself is a dying art.
It is no longer passed from generation to generation, from friends and family and from educational institutions. People say with pride that I cannot cook, I cannot sew, I cannot grow. Somehow it is the job of a fuddy, duddy, housewife to slog around an oven when the inspired ones should be weight lifting or listening to an ipod. It is astounding that something like food which sustains us, which is the fire of our whole being is a second rate priority. TV companies are churning program after program on food and TV chefs are becoming multimillion business. The DFES has followed the trends. Cooking buses have been introduced to land in the car parking for year 10 to practice Food and Technology lessons. What is wrong with us? Why are we not equipping ourselves with life skills? Why are we teaching people to read labels on the food packages instead of using their hands? Somehow using computers are a better skill than preparing something to sustain yourself.

Of course people are very busy working long hours , commuting, childcaring, shopping and lugging readymade meals and filling landscapes with plastic. Introduce me to someone who moans about lack of time and I will prove that it is not lack of time, it is the lack of skill that stops them to enjoy the pleasures of nuturing food.

Food and Mood is here to hold your hand to show you just that. Join me with your friends and family to cut through your denial and bring this art to its rightful place.

I will be publishing my list of forthcoming events soon.