LAGOM - January 2024
A miso eggplant millet salad, the magic of flowers with Cecilia Fox, the ethics of eggs and Maggie Marilyn’s mission.
Hello, hello!
Welcome to issue 36! And a new year. A time for setting new agendas. For this fresh start, we have a delicious millet salad with miso eggplant for you, and we interviewed floral artist Melanie Stapleton of Cecilia Fox at length about her career, the cut flower industry, and why flowers and florists hold a very particular magic. We share a heartfelt opinion piece on the ethics of eating eggs and reflections on our food systems. Chic sustainable fashions also abound in this Summer edition, offering a glamorous and fun photoshoot with Maggie Marilyn pieces to illustrate an in-depth brand profile.
Vacations are over, and after a couple of weeks, we are planting more firmly in our values, our commitment and the manifestation of our desires for the year ahead. Balancing our needs with others, learning where we begin. We’re finding our way. And learning. Always learning as we go. Now is the moment. What will 2024 hold? Where are you, and where will you be at the end? Will you actually do what you stayed up late and talked about doing all those nights?
“Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.” – Gilda Radner
Millet salad with miso eggplant
This joyful and rewarding dish is easy to prepare, grounding, and nutrient-dense, combining millet with delicious umami miso-infused eggplant. In addition, learn about all the good reasons to love eggplants.
Melanie Stapleton of Cecilia Fox
Reject air-freighted flowers and celebrate the homegrown bloom. Floristry is an art form, and here, the woman behind Cecilia Fox, Melanie Stapleton, shares with us a florist’s vision for the industry of the future and why flowers hold a very particular magic, communicating and connecting us to the natural world and cosmos.
The hens in the backyard
When Jake Clarke invited us to visit his hens [whom he affectionately refers to as his ladies], it was an opportunity to discuss the ethics of eating animals and to consider the relationship between our food system, nutrition, health and disease. All these issues are interrelated, and eating anything has implications. And when we do, it forces us to look not just at animal welfare and different ways of farming but to reconsider our diets. Why can we not want for something better than this? Hens should live on more space than one A4 sheet of paper.
Maggie Marilyn, making a difference through clothing
Between Stella McCartney and Patagonia lies Maggie Marilyn, the South Hemisphere A-list sustainable fashion brand, built at the age of 21 by farm-town, Bay of Island-born Maggie Marilyn Hewitt. MM is on a mission to create a better world through clothing. Another world is possible, and Hewitt’s successful label is here to prove it.
Amandine's edit
Renting is not a peaceful journey, as we experienced ourselves throughout the pandemic and again in 2022. And while landlords and property managers may quickly learn if a tenant is trustworthy, we need a place where we can validate landlords and, therefore, report them, to understand whether they view us as an ATM before a human being. Luckily, Jordan van den Berg in Australia has started to counter this, creating a platform to leave reviews on a property or its management, Shit Rentals. It is based in Australia, but you can make a review from wherever you are.
Are you a believer that the truth is out there? Many are convinced to various degrees, including myself, that we are not alone in this universe and that there are visitations on Earth. Some humans see them and report them on platforms like UFO Stalker. The reports are simply observations but fascinating somehow.
Some would say this is a bit more trivial, but I have to share when my favourite author interviews my favourite model of all time! Alicia Kennedy was featured in Harper's Bazaar in a piece she wrote about Gisele Bündchen, partially interviewing and partially storytelling. I love the writing.
Trace's edit
Higher Love, this collaboration between Loco Love and Vyrao is something surely to raise your vibration. The limited edition bundle includes six Loco Love chocolates, one 2ml Witchy Woo Eau de Parfum and eight Witchy Woo incense sticks. Shipping is available beyond Australia, though it is recommended to order where your destination does not exceed 30 degrees Celsius.
If a deeper commitment to self-love is on your 2024 agenda, may I suggest The Wax Apple Scalp Comb Squiggle? Shipping is available globally.
When a building is demolished, and a new one is built in its place, the emissions locked into the original building are wasted, and the new building's material manufacturing and construction processes create new emissions. And vast amounts of waste. Australian building company Revival Projects' Zero Footprint Repurposing hub invites architects, designers, builders and manufacturers involved in demolition projects to use their space—free of charge, to store demolished materials until repurposing those materials becomes possible. Until redefining obsolescence becomes more complex and developers are increasingly required to consider Environmental and Social Governance (ESG), this initiative to divert construction materials from landfills creates space for vital conversations in the sector, facilitating an immediate and significant environmental impact now.
Thoughts, questions, you can always direct reply to these emails.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Tracey Creed & Amandine Paniagua
