Year: 2016

A mindful review: M Train by Patti Smith

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Here’s another book review. I liked this one. I was totally absorbed. Patti Smith, is of course the New York punk-rock legend from the eighties who has now written multiple award-winning books.

M Train Pattie Smith book revieew Sarah Wilson
M Train, Patti Smith

Background: I don’t know why I picked up this book. When I did a quick flick through it at the bookstore, it immediately sucked me in. Part-memoir, part-Beat prose, set in New York and woven together with a thread of pure whimsy (witness Smith’s love of sitting in a daggy café drinking black coffee and eating brown toast with olive oil) it ticked many boxes for me.

The gist: Smith meanders without rule or self-consciousness, tracing all the things she misses, including time itself. It reads like the diary entries that she writes on paper napkins and scraps of paper in the daggy café. Probably because that’s how the book was written. It’s a real time journey

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My elevator guide to the microbiome

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I don’t endeavour here to do a huge in-depth piece on what is a really complex topic that I’ve been studying for three years now (frankly, I don’t have the time). But since gut health is becoming more and more of a “big deal”, I’ve put together an elevator guide to the microbiome, a bunch of facts you need to know, nicely packaged in bite-sized form to tell your mates, Gran, postman or hairdresser.

Image via nytimes.com
Image via nytimes.com

1. News just in: The microbiome is responsible for most contemporary illness.

2. The microbiome is the bacteria living inside you and on your skin – bacteria, viruses, archaea, eukaryotes and fungi included.

3. 95 per cent of microbiota sits in your gut – home to approximately 100,000,000,000,000 (100 trillion) micro organisms. That’s 10 times more than the number of cells in the human body.

4. Your gut microbiome comprises 80 per cent of your immune system. 

5. You don’t get your bacteria until after you’re born. We acquire most of our microbiome by the age of three.

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How to find your place

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Are you a young person wondering what the hell you’re meant to be doing? Trying to find your place? Are you a parent with a beloved young person in your life who is struggling with their place?

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Image via fourtears.tumblr.com

My suggestion: read famous creatives’ graduation speeches. They are truly inspiring frothings in which said famous creative confesses they, too, had no idea when they were young as to their allotted groove, with tricks on how to “settle” into it.

Journalist Pamela Druckerman recently shared this piece of writing when she was struggling to draft a commencement speech for her students at a Paris Arts College. This is the part that struck me most.

Pay attention to what you’re doing on the side.

“I started my writing career as a financial journalist. On the side, I took samba-dancing lessons, and eventually wrote a first-person article about this experience. It was the first piece I’d written that lit me up inside. Though it took years before I got to write that way for a living, I had found my place, the tiny hole in the universe shaped like me,” she shared.

Same with me. I was studying law and politics and waitressed for fun (and survival). My love of food saw me explore further in this realm. I did work experience at a magazine and offered to redesign the food pages over the weekend…because my love of food steered me to this. Monday morning I got the gig as the

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The 15 types who need to be eating gelatin

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Let me introduce to you: Gelatin. My new obsession and wonder weapon for gut health. In fact I believe in the power of gelatin so much I’ve produced my own.

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Gut Lovin’ Gelatin, available at IQuitSugar.com

I’ve banged on about just how good this stuff is for you before. If you ask me, everyone can benefit from a little Gut Lovin’ – but if any of the symptoms below sound familiar to you, look no further. Gelatin is your new best friend.

1. If you’ve got acne

Gelatin contains the essential amino acid proline, which is used by the body to repair connective tissues, produce collagen and improve the texture of skin.

2. If you’ve got reflux 

Gelatin reduces heartburn, ulcers and acid reflux by binding gut acids with the foods.

3. If you’re an insomniac

Reasearch has shown that the amino acid glycine contained in gelatin can actually enhance sleep quality,

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This is what my writing desk looks like (not pretty!)

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I work in chaos. Plus, I’m very visual and I need to see ALL my bits of notes and ideas and outlines in one bird’s-eye grasp. So I scatter them around me at my desk, or the floor, or (as is often the case) the cafe bench where I’ve set up shop for the morning.

My writing desk in my office
My writing desk in my office at IQS HQ

Also, my eyes and brain respond better to handwritten and hardcopy things. (My advice to young writers is to handwrite their story outline first.) Whether it’s the supermarket receipt with my scrawl-of-a-thought or the serviette from the cafe where I got my great intro paragraph idea for my next book, these messy, tangible things trigger my best creative thinking.

I’m in good company, apparently.

Albert Einstein had a desk that “looked like a spiteful ex-girlfriend had a mission to destroy (my) workspace.” Which, apart from anything else, is a fabulously evocative bit of descriptor.

Einstein would also say, in defense of his chaos:

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?”

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Bonus recipe! Gym Go-er Choc Spice Energy Bars

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A while back I shared a few extra images from readers who helped me test recipes for my latest book, I Quit Sugar: Simplicious. I promised I’d share more details of Lana’s recipe for the Gym Go-er Choc Spice Energy Bars. These bars didn’t make it into the book. My publisher couldn’t fit any more in, so I guess you could call it a bonus recipe.

Lana Jankovic's creation -Gym Go-er Choc Spice Energy Bars
Lana Jankovic’s recreation – Gym Go-er Choc Spice Energy Bars

These little chocolatey flavour bombs are already packed with protein from black beans and tahini. But if you want to boost the protein content, swap the oat flour for protein powder. Lana‘s verdict after testing? “They turned out delicious – almost like a fudgey brownie!”

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