A soft and buttery texture,

packed with flavour, almost melts in your mouth. A whiff of Italy’s Parma aroma. With your eyes closed you can almost feel a breeze touching your face, you can almost see open fields between some hills, with green, beige and soft browns… the very colours of Parma, similarly reflected in the ham. An afternoon in Parma, with a charcuterie board, some melons, some baby mozzarellas, a pesto, a good piece of bread, some olives, olive oil and the wine… chatting, laughing, gazing out… feeling the breeze, feeling the love reaching out to you from every direction… from the earth, the land and all its inhabitants, the giving of that earth, from the sunny skies, the breezy air, from the friends around you and from within. Could there ever be anything better? Isn’t this the essence of being alive?

To be good, to do well, to live well, to be happy, to be alive… really doesn’t take much. No complex recipes, no elaborate methods, no fuss… just really looking to see all that is around us… simply celebrating all that we are blessed to have… respecting the gift we are given and absolutely appreciating it, preserving it and enjoying it. This is it.

Let’s not overthink… let’s for once put the hats down, let’s look and really see. Let’s see it as it is… celebrate the natural qualities and learn to allow them to shine as is and tell us their stories… Let’s listen and really hear…

Perhaps that’s how we ought to live, and until we know that, we will just continue to survive.