Friendship was the missing ingredient

When I started a little community-art project called “Meals in the Mail” in 2017, I didn’t articulate - even to myself - why the sharing of recipes via snail-mail felt so important to me. I just knew that it was important.

I invited people to post me a favourite recipe, and to enclose with it some words about why the recipe was so special to them.

Even in my wildest, most optimistic dreams, I could not have imagined that such a simple idea would resonate so profoundly with so many people. In the six weeks of this project, I received more than 250 letters, each of them containing recipes and stories, and often also enclosing photographs, paper ephemera, drawings and paintings. Favourite recipes making their way to me from all over the world, carrying with them the flavours, traditions, histories and personal connections created the people who sent them. Comfort food, nostalgic food, the food of adventure, the food of tradition, the food of family, the food of true love.

I sat with these recipes for five years, overwhelmed by the responsibility of what they meant to me, and potentially to you. Their very value prevented me from making something of them. Nothing I could think of would truly do justice to the precious treasure I felt I was holding.

But, as with so many other challenges, a burden shared is indeed a burden halved.

I came to know Melanie Hall earlier this year, when she joined one of my courses. And while it was my job to teach and support Melanie, almost immediately, I realised I there was so much I had to learn from her. And more than that, I had an immediate and almost childlike feeling, one that grown-ups only ever-so-rarely get, that I wanted to ask Melanie, “Will you be my friend?”

Naturally, she was a perfect fit on paper for Meals in the Mail: as a baker, a caterer, an amateur food historian, and a lover of snail mail, I knew she would perfectly complement my skills as a writer, an illustrator, and - of course - a lover of snail mail.

But if I’m honest, I invited Melanie to join me in this project without strategy or planning. Instinctively, I knew that together we could bring this project to life.

Which brings me - at last! - to some rather exciting news I have to share, which is the beginning of something very special. Finally - finally! - the Meals in the Mail recipes will have the opportunity they deserve to shine.

Together, Melanie and I are going to cook the recipes, read the stories, celebrate the beautiful mail-art, and explore the interesting paths they open up for us.

Paths that lead to culinary histories, cooking techniques, emotional connections, nostalgic memories, cultural traditions, and, of course, delicious food.

We’ll share all of this in a podcast, a newsletter, weekly dispatches, recipes, books, and more.

This whole project (with the first of the Meals in the Mail letters) officially kicks off on on 3 October 2022, but there’s already some content available to read if you’d like to get a feel for what we’re creating:

• Here is the “About” page for our project

• Here’s a story of Nan’s pumpkin soup in two parts (start here then continue here)

• Here’s the subscribe page if you’d like to be part of this (there are free and paid options)

Naturally, I’d be beyond thrilled if you wanted to read and listen along.

And, as shared recipes are all about forging connections, Melanie and I hope you will not only watch, listen to and read our stories: we invite you to weave your own stories into them as well. Tell us what the stories we share mean to you. Tell us if you try the recipes! Ask Melanie your most puzzling culinary questions. Ask me to help you turn your favourite food-story or recipe into shareable art.

Over time, we’ll also invite them to share their own “meals in the mail” to be featured in this project.

It is our hope that this new iteration of Meals in the Mail becomes a truly collaborative project: not only between me and Melanie, but also between the two of us, and you.

Our kitchens are connected, ours and yours, through the simple but potentially eternal tools of pen, paper, and postage stamp.