Bliss Pure Foods looks like a fantastic recipe book for healthy living. Any plans to make it into a series or write similar books?
Yes I have the intentions to continue writing and combine my years of experiences in arts, education, spiritual food making and life coaching as one. I love continual learning and multi disciplinary education. I believe LIFE is abundance and within that abundance is a field of great possibilities where anything is possible.
What do you think makes a great health/recipe book?
Handmade. Plant based. Natural. Colorful. Free from mad intentions. I believe these are the basics of what healthy recipes should be.
What inspired you when writing Bliss Pure Foods?
When BLISSPUREFOODS was being written, my dad and spiritual teacher passed away last year in April and November. Bliss pure foods was created with the intention to support people in healthy living as well as share the message of ahimsa (non violence). While writing the work, the constant dedicating of merits to them and all beings kept me going. Though they are no longer around, I also wish for the goodness of this work to be of benefit to all my sentient parents. I am happy that I rode above my grief and completed the book. I knew it was my passion and also strong wish to share bliss and happiness through healthy food making that kept me relentlessly moving onward.
What are your ambitions for your writing career? Full time? Part time?
I wish that I will always be happy with what I do and share this inner bliss with people whom I will meet, connect and know along the way.
When did you decide to become a writer?
I didn’t decide to be a writer. I felt it was what I was guided to do. Writing starting for me when I was 19 at Scarborough Beach in Perth.
When writing Bliss Pure Foods did anything stand out as particularly challenging?
It was trying to fit in thousands of photos within a book and the designer was really having a hard time laying the book out. I wanted the book to be colorful and be filled with lots of photos more than words. We still had to remove lots of photos because it was difficult to fit in everything.
How did you come up with the recipes in Bliss Pure Foods?
I was an assistant chef in an ashram in USA where I learned vegan cooking, spirituality, Sanskrit, meditation and yoga. The art of spiritual food making began from there. Because I am an artist, art teacher and in image consultant who is trained in the nuances of design, my creativity and playfulness helped a lot in playing and experimentation of vegan, vegetarian and raw food recipes.
What do you like to do when not writing?
I am an ocean person. I love the sea. I also love being in Nature as well as attending buddhist meditation retreats, learning a new language, reading good books and practicing wagashi—a Japanese tea ceremony dessert. I love this quote by Waly Whitman— I am vast and I contain multitudes. When not writing, I enjoy taking time alone to do what I feel drawn towards.
How can readers discover more about you and your work?
They can follow me on facebook at blisspurefoods as well as on Instagram.