But lately I’ve felt this strange longing to do so again. Maybe it’s because summer is slowly coming to an end, and I always find this time of year a little reflective. 10 days to September, it’s the turning point they say! Harvest season.

Isn’t it crazy that we’re already approaching the last few months of the year? I feel like summer has barely started, and yet here we are again. I’m already planning my return to Asia next year, thinking about Lunar New Year and seeing the people I love. Somehow life is always moving ahead of us.

Two days ago, someone I knew of through fashion died in a car accident with her partner.

I didn’t know her personally. I had never met her. But she was prominent enough that I had come across her many times over the years, and whenever I saw a photograph of her or read something about her, I remember thinking the same thing: she seemed like such a beaming ray of light. Always smiling. Brilliant at what she did. Surrounded by people who seemed to adore her. If I ever worked in fashion, she is who I would want to be when I grow up.

Since her death, I’ve found myself almost compulsively reading the tributes people have written about her. Friends, colleagues, family, people whose lives crossed hers briefly or for decades. Through all these little fragments, this portrait of a person begins to emerge. Someone deeply loved. Someone who loved life. Someone incredibly close to her family.

One of her children wrote something along the lines of their life ending when she took her last breath. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

Death has always affected me this way. It's not the first time I've obsessively read about someone I never met. I read the tributes. I look at old photographs. I want to know where they went, who they loved, what made them laugh, what their friends remember about them, trying to piece together the shape of a whole life after suddenly being confronted with its end.

This time I felt sad and angry too.

She was still young, and with kids slightly younger than me. They seemed to have this enormous, beautiful life around them. And I kept thinking: why did this have to happen to them? Of course there is no answer.

For two nights I couldn’t sleep properly. I kept thinking about them, about the moment their lives must have split into a before and an after. How do you wake up the following morning and realise that something unthinkable two days ago is simply your life now?

And of course, inevitably my mind turns towards my own. Sometimes I think I spend more of it than I would like waiting for something bad to happen. I have been extraordinarily lucky. I know this. I’ve lived a good and comfortable life, surrounded by people I love, and so many of the things I once wished for have become completely ordinary parts of my existence. Maybe that is exactly why there is sometimes this little voice in the back of my mind asking when the other shoe will drop.

Every year, some part of me wonders: is this going to be the year? The year the phone rings. The year change is going to happen. The year life becomes divided into a before and an after. It’s such a strange way to live, because worrying about losing a beautiful life doesn’t protect you from losing it. If anything, it quietly takes you away from the very thing you’re so afraid of losing. That’s exactly what scares me.

We spend so much time living slightly ahead of ourselves. There is joy in having things to look forward to. But somewhere between summer ending and another year slipping by, I want to get better at being where I actually am.

And yet here I am, in Stockholm in August, wearing a jacket zipped all the way up my neck and wondering why I’m not somewhere in Spain, working remotely from a little table by the sea. My job allows me to. There is technically nothing stopping me.

Every time I ask Johan what's something we could actually do together on a bucket list, he's the one who brings up disappearing for a few months to travel through Latin and Central America. Believe me, this is actually my worst nightmare, anything involving a giant backpack and shared bathrooms freaks me out. But he can never let go of his job, and he knows it. We spoke about it again just last week. I told him to at least try doing it by the time he turns 35. There is always somewhere else I want to go, another version of life I want to try on for a little while.

Johan is always trying to ground me. He’s practical that way, excessiveness simply isn’t in his blood. But I don’t think I’m excessive at all. I’m simply trying to live at 100 percent. Why have the freedom to go somewhere and then not go? Maybe that is just who I am. I don’t want to feel bad for it.

Sweden is home to me now, but I think I’ve finally accepted what kind of home it is. It’s where I reset. I come back here tired, sometimes slightly unwell, after travelling too much and doing too much, and suddenly all I want is to sleep in my own bed, cook, exercise, take care of myself and live quietly for a while. And then I feel ready to go again.

For a long time I think I felt guilty admitting that, as though building a life somewhere meant I had to want that life forever. I love my home here. I love the (few) people I have here. I’ve built a life in Stockholm, a small one perhaps, but a life is a life, and I’m proud of it. But I also have no shame anymore in saying that I don’t think Sweden will ever be the permanent answer for me.

That doesn’t mean I am unhappy. And it certainly doesn’t change how I feel about Johan. He is my person. But our relationships to this place are fundamentally different. He lives within a kilometre of most of his best friends while mine are scattered across the world. There will always be someone I need to meet and see, and I don’t want to feel guilty about it. London, Singapore, Italy, and everywhere in between. The other day I suddenly realised I haven’t been back to London in a year. There are people I love whom I haven’t seen in two or three years. Coordinating everyone only becomes harder as we get older, as people build careers and families and lives in different places. And I am not going to deny it makes me sad. Because the reality is that if I don’t go to them, many of them aren’t going to come to me in Sweden. And I don’t even blame them. What would bring them here? Their lives are elsewhere, just as so much of mine still feels like it exists elsewhere too.

I wonder sometimes if my restlessness and my fear of loss are the same thing wearing different outfits, and if it's only getting louder as I get older. The more life I build, the more there is to lose, and maybe some part of me thinks that if I keep moving, keep seeing people, I can outrun it. I don’t know.

Maybe there is value in having somewhere quiet to return to. Maybe not every place has to give you everything. Sweden gives me stability. It gives me home. It gives me somewhere to come back to and put myself together again. But there are other places in the world that give me something Sweden will never be able to.

After a short reset, I can feel that familiar pull again, part restlessness, part readiness, the kind that builds from sitting on my couch for too long. To notice when life is good without immediately wondering how long it will last because I am too busy having a blast. To call people. To take the trip. To sit around the table for longer. To tell people I love them.

Harvest season, they call it. Maybe that's what this is. Not an ending, just gathering in what this summer gave me before the next cycle begins.

Stockholm is cold, wet, and rainy these days. Summer? Hah. But we did have three glorious weeks of sunshine, so I can’t really complain - it’s Sweden, after all.

Why do I say transformative? These last few months, I’ve finally sat with myself. Properly. I've had more than a few sleepless nights with a heavy heart, and more chats with ChatGPT than I care to admit. And I finally got myself a therapist again. It took longer than I wanted, but I’m so glad I did. And I highly recommend it!

There’s a new clarity I feel now, one I haven’t had in years. I don’t live a perfect life, and I’ve stopped trying to. I’ve spent too long feeling shame over thoughts and emotions I never consciously chose, afraid to shake the life I’ve worked so hard to build. But what I’ve learned is this: avoiding the difficult truths of who we are slowly chips away at our capacity for love, for intimacy, and for knowing ourselves.

I don’t want to romanticize pain, but I do believe there’s something quietly powerful in confronting what we’ve long avoided. It doesn’t make life easier, but maybe it makes it more honest. And through it all, I’m still wildly excited about life about everything and anything that might make it beautiful, even if it comes with a few hard truths along the way.

Martinis, long chats with friends, plotting out summer escapes (which I promise I’ll write about soon), and hosting slow, cozy dinners at home — those have been the things keeping me grounded lately. Little joys that remind me life doesn’t have to be perfect to feel good.

Thank you for still being here, even through the quiet stretches.

Lots of love,
Melody

My 30th year was supposed to open doors and bring new possibilities, and maybe it did in ways I hadn’t expected. Instead of expanding, my life seemed to come to a standstill. Social media jobs I once depended on started to vanish, and I found myself questioning what was next. I joked about mourning the “end of an era,” but honestly, it is hard to let go of this version of myself. There’s a quiet grief in saying goodbye to a part of your life that once felt limitless, and I’m not sure I’m entirely ready.

For so long, creativity meant constant output. I carried a camera everywhere, planned a hundred different outfits for every trip, and lived in a way that was always ready to be captured, always ready to be shared. But now, as I slow down, as I allow myself to actually be in the moments I once raced to document, I wonder: if I’m no longer creating at that pace, where does that leave me? What happens to the identity I built around my work and the stories I crafted?

Creativity, for me, has always been about finding meaning, telling stories, and making beauty out of the everyday. And as I step back, I feel an urge to reconnect with that original purpose—to create not for clicks or engagement, but for the simple love of it. I don’t know exactly where this leads, or what it means for my work. But I do know that there’s something freeing in allowing myself to be undefined, to let the creative process become less about a product and more about a way of life.

So maybe this transition isn’t an end but a recalibration—a chance to explore new ways of being a creator. And perhaps, by leaning into this slower, more honest way of creating, I’ll find a new space where my love for beauty, art, and storytelling can live freely. I’m not sure what comes next, but I’m here for the journey, ready to see what unfolds when I let go of what was and allow myself to create simply for the sake of creating.

Thanks for reading.
Love you <3

1. Nailao Ladna Yodpak
   Best pad see ew of my life!! I am a loyal loyal customer and have been coming for close to a decade and I absolutely LOVE it here. It’s still quite a local crowd of people that visit so there are no lines etc. They actually focus on ‘rad na’ which is a dish of flat rice noodles cooked on a very hot wok to give it the ‘wok-hey’ (the breath of the wok that imparts flavour to the dish) and with a thick gravy poured over it and served with pork and vegetables. Here you can choose between stir fry noodles (noodles of your choice) and the rad na (also with noodles of your choice - I love the crispy egg noodles with the gravy like you see in the photo on the far right. This is so far my best kept secret in Bangkok.

   2. Ta Chai Sukothai Noodles
   Very delicious noodles with that Thai zing to it - a comfortable dish that feels like a warm hug. The dish itself has so many textures. Green beans, salted turnip and ground peanuts are the main ingredients.The flavours are based on a sweet mellow and smell of lime, dressing with fish sauce and ground chilli and its usually served on its own or with a soup. This is situated in the old town of Bangkok and it’s such a lovely stroll, there are other famous eateries all within a short walking distance.

   

   3. Short walking distance from Ta Chai Sukothai is this Hainanese eatery - Hainanese food is generally quite hard to find in Thailand and I was surprised there’s a Hainanese - Chinese community here. KoLun is well known among its loyal patrons for serving up an old family recipe of Hainan style Khanom Jeen (rice noodles) with a thick and rich stewed pork soup. If you're a carnivore like me, the stewed pork at KoLun will delight you with its melt-in-your-mouth tenderness, together with the crunchy pork belly while the noodle soup offers a deeply flavorful broth (I always get this on the side). Additionally, there is shrimp paste on every table to eat with the food, something that you won't find anywhere else in Bangkok. For those who might prefer an alternative to rice noodles, KoLun also serves a variety of rice-based dishes.

   

   3. Pien Charcoal Stove Fried Noodles
   Here is an old-school example of what I call slow street food - the lady, Aunty Pien cooks every portion of the copper pan-fried chicken noodles (Kuay Thiew Kua Gai) individually and there is no rushing her. There are only two make shift communal long tables by the alley for anyone to sit while you patiently wait for your meal. My favourite is the egg noodle cooked on the charcoal with chicken and pork, topped with extra chicken crackling. I fucking love this.

   

4. Kuay Jab Mr Joe
   Kuay jab is a Thai Chinese soup dish of rice rolls (noodles), known for its heavenly peppery broth, and typically including a series of pork organs and slices of crispy pork belly. The broth is quite similar to the Singaporean style of Ba Kut Teh. I’m personally not a fan of innards and pig organs so my order of choice is broth with the rice rolls, tofu, the meat and crispy pork on the side so I can dip it into the broth. I’ve heard of Kuay Jab Mr Joe for years and only managed to visit during my recent trip. People RAVE about the pork belly here and I literally asked myself, how good can crispy pork belly be? When I finally placed a slice of the crispy pork in my mouth, it blew my mind. It was the best piece of pork belly I have had, and I don’t say that lightly. (I have just eaten crispy pork in Spain that might have topped that but that bite in BKK on a hot Thursday morning was GLORIOUS) The pork belly is served with a dark sweet soy sauce on the side for contrast and I like it both with and without. I haven’t had enough Kuay Jab in my life to say that this is the best broth in town (but I do love it), but that crispy pork is something else. You have to try it!!

   

   
   5. Somsak Pu Ob
   This is a stall cart that serves the best glass noodles with prawns and crabs. The recipe is simple but the quality here is undeniably some of the best in Bangkok. It’s always just one chef cooking all the orders himself, juggling 4-5 pots of woonsen (glass noodles) at a time. They’re cooked in pork fat and chicken stock and a sauce - the flavour explosion after stirring up the dish is insanity. Somsak has a few outlets all over Bangkok and they usually open from 5pm. Absolutely delicious if you ask me!
   

6. ‘Saew’ Noodle Shop
   This noodle shop in Thonglor is a hidden gem and a local favorite. The Saew tom yum noodles here are legendary, available either in a spicy broth or dry, each version brimming with flavor and topped with a perfect blend of condiments that make it feel just like home. They also offer a signature yentafoo that's not to be missed. The noodles and fishballs are freshly made, and the seasonings are perfectly balanced. Visiting the coffee shop is like stepping back in time by 40 years—a charming escape. They also serve delicious juices that are incredibly refreshing, perfect for Bangkok’s heat! My personal favourite is the longan juice.

   

   
   7. “Ann” Guay Tiew Kua Gai

   Guay Tiew Kua Gai is a distinctive dish typically found in Bangkok's old town (I could be wrong but I didn’t find this anywhere else). This unique preparation involves frying rice noodles in a charcoal wok at very high heat until they achieve a crispy texture on the outside, while remaining soft and chewy inside, almost like a pancake. This particular establishment enhances the dish by topping the noodles with an onsen egg, adding a creamy texture that complements the crispy noodles. The dish is traditionally paired with chicken as ‘kua gai’ means fried chicken but you are able to choose a protein of your choice. Absolutely delicious!!!!

   

   8. Kuay Teow Kua Gai Nai Hong

   OK, here’s the thing. I arrived in Bangkok, ate at “Ann’s” eatery (previous one before this) then walked to the back of the restaurant and found an entire street of vendors making the same dish. I felt like I walked into a movie set. Nai Hong’s kuay teow for me was absolute perfection. Many say this is the best stall in Bangkok for this dish. It really is a street stall, with a few make shift tables and chairs. There are only 2 ladies cooking every dish one by one, ensuring that the noodles are golden and charred so it’s a long wait but it is worth it. This is a dish that really isn’t easy to make - you need that smoky flavour from cooking on the charcoal wok, the perfect searing and char so the noodles have that crispy texture on the outside. Each bowl of noodles are about 40-50 thb.

   

9. Rung Rueang Noodle Shop

   There are 2 stalls here, located side by side but with the same name, The story goes that there was a family feud resulting in 2 shops, each having its own loyal clientele. I’ve personally only tried the one on the LEFT. These are Thai minced meat noodles, and as usual you can choose for it to be served dry or in a broth, with your choice of noodles and toppings. What I really love about Rung Rueang is the ground pork, to me it is the golden ratio and what eating boiled minced meat is all about. The balance of the fat vs lean meat ratio making the ground meat so springy and delicious. They are also famous for their fried fish skin, which you can dip into the broth or top on top of your noodles. The Thai style of Tom Yum noodles in all of these stores are just an extra chilli and lime seasoning really, so not the usual coconut-heavy broth we associate it. Even the dry style of Tom Yum noodles are light and zesty. This is comfort food for me - they got so popular they’ve now opened a massive stall across the road with more seats and an ordering system, with Michelin Bib Gourmand stickers plastered everywhere. Organised chaos if you ask me. While I am happy for their success, I miss the nostalgia of the old coffee shop but it is still a very delicious bowl of noodles

   

10. Wattana Panich

    It feels illegal to not bring up this place - to be honest I’ve not had many Thai beef noodle soups in Thailand but I do LIKE this eatery. I have been a few times but wouldn’t say I am a regular. Legend has it that that huge pot of broth has not stopped bubbling for over 50 years. They specialise in beef noodle dishes but they also sell other items like stewed pork knuckle with rice and the classic pad see ew but if you’re coming here, the light herbal beef broth is something special with the beef that melts in your mouth.

    

11. Tang Sui Heng Restaurant

    This iconic family-run shop has been packed with locals for more than 50 years specializing in duck and goose dishes. Renowned for its duck/goose noodles and succulent braised duck/goose served in claypots, this establishment knows how to deliver flavor. My favourite is the herbal duck broth—a recipe I personally adore and consider among the best in the city. The broth here is incomparable: rich, hearty, and perfectly balanced. And this is one of the best places in Bangkok that does it. They also offer delicacies such as duck/goose innards paired with rice noodles if you’re into that.

That’s it!! I’m exhausted, I’m sure you can tell towards the end. This took FOREVER, I have plenty of other places to share but I’ll have to leave it to next time. Just want to make a disclaimer that some go the photos are not mine and stolen from google reviews as I only had crappy iPhone photos :)

I sit here on the train back to Stockholm after a week in my boyfriend’s hometown in Sweden’s west coast where we stuffed our faces silly in ugly, delicious brown Christmas food, watched Love Actually for the 100th time and danced to our favourite Caribbean Christmas playlist. (Link here) My personal  favourite song is “Piece Ah Pork” in case anyone is wondering. It works up an appetite, that I can promise you.

My last post here was a tough one to write, and I want to reiterate that no matter how good or bad this year has been for you - if you’re reading this - chances are you have food to eat, a safe roof over your head and you do not have to live with the fear of whether you’re going to be dead tomorrow. There are thousands of people around the world that are still living in war - and here is a gentle reminder to always remember to count our blessings. And learn about what’s happening.

Anyway here is a round up of some of my favourite things I did, saw and ate from the year.

Fish Market experience in Tokyo —I don’t know about you but I love Airbnb experiences and have had mostly good experiences - in February my aunt and I did a Toyosu fish market experience in Tokyo - hated having to be up at 5am but it was well worth it. I’ve been to Japan a dozen times but it was my first time seeing the live fish auctions for myself. We got to experience the dynamic atmosphere in the market, interacting with the local fishmongers and seeing them go about their work with utmost precision whilst buying fresh seafood that we would later eat! The host Toshi, was extremely informative and just such a lovely lovely man and after a morning at the market we went back to his little ‘restaurant’ where his wife prepared the heartiest meal and we got to eat the all fresh seafood we got. Fatty tuna sashimi! Uni! Steamed king crabs! Just give it all to me.

You can join the tour on Airbnb, and Toshi is also available to do the tours privately.

Cooking Workshop in Italy — In March, I travelled to Puglia to join a 5 day cooking workshop at Masseria Moroseta with chefs Giorgia and Alice. 7 people including myself from all around the world, flew in for the experience and it was definitely one of the highlights of my year. If Moroseta sounds familiar to you, it’s a B&B converted farmhouse that’s nestled between the sea and the mountains of Ostuni that’s all over Instagram and it’s absolutely beautiful. Giorgia, the ‘head’ chef at Moroseta makes insane food - I had the privilege of experiencing one of Moroseta’s communal dinners back in 2019 and it was unforgettable and I’ve followed Giorgia and have been such a fan of her attitude towards food and working with seasonal produce since. The workshop was so much fun (obviously drank my weight in local natural wine) - and I learnt so many new techniques that I now apply to my everyday. We did everything from pickling vegetables, filleting a whole fish, making fresh pasta, dehydrating / infusing scraps of ingredients so nothing goes to waste, we learnt about biodynamic wines and artisan cheeses from local makers…. Giorgia’s recipes are not exactly rustic Italian recipes so I was super pleased to be learning completely unexpected things I never thought I’d do in my kitchen. I went alone and left with my heart and belly so warm and full, with new friends I now call my own. It was one of the best weeks!

You can follow Masseria Moroseta on Instagram and stay up to date on their workshops (they’ve recently released dates for workshops next March), or if you happen to be in Puglia, book a dinner. I promise you will love it!

In the peak of summer, me and my boyfriend found ourselves in the Basque Country with Biarritz as our home base.

Stay in Paradise - One of my favourite accommodations I’ve stayed in this year is at Villa Magnan - nestled in the heart of a three hectare park, which also has three neo-Basque style outbuildings filled with Art Deco interior and vintage objects. AND a pet donkey named Hector. Our room was gorgeous, breakfast felt like a dream. I never experienced something so personal and beautiful. Not going to lie, I might have came for the donkey. The villa was inhabited briefly by Spanish aristocrats and then left unoccupied for 80 years before owners Anne and Jerome bought and refurbished the property. Its marvelous imperfections make it what it is and it’s a space that exudes a magical kind of energy, same with the people it attracts. We met wonderful people and had lovely conversations at dinner and breakfast, some of whom we still keep in touch with.

If you find yourself just passing by Biarritz for a day, then visit De Puta Madre, the villa’s restaurant which opens in the summer with resident chefs cooking up a storm with local produce. I loved every minute I spent in Villa Magnan with its furry creatures.

Food Tour in San Sebastien - From Biarritz, we drove to San Sebastien for a day and it’s chaotic. So we joined a last minute Airbnb experience eating tapas and pinchos, drinking wine and learning about Basque culture. Fun fun fun and great food!

Day trip to Getaria- I loved visiting the Basque region - we also took a day trip to Getaria, birthplace of Cristobal Balenciaga which houses a museum in his name. Getaria is also home to some of the best seafood and it’s hailed as the tiny Spanish capital of grilled fish - turbot in particular. I can single-handedly say it was one of the best things that have been in my mouth this year. We ate at the legendary Kaia Kaipe.

Day at the Guggenheim - We also spent 2 days in Bilbao, finally visiting the Guggenheim which has been on my list of to-dos for ages. Needless to say I loved running around Richard Serra’s sculptural masterpiece and we were lucky to see a retrospective of Yayoyi Kusama’s work which we enjoyed for once, without the social media circus. Not just rooms filled with polka dots and stickers for children to play with but her paintings and performances. It was nice to end an afternoon at the museum with a fat glass of crisp local white wine. The food in Bilbao was out of this world - I now understand why people say Basque food is in a league of its own.

Beauty Class in Seoul - In September, I found myself back in Seoul after 7 years. I was in the land of all things beauty! And the first thing I did was to sign up for a beauty class. I learnt techniques which I’ve religiously applied to my everyday make up routine. I found the make up artist on Instagram linked here and she works out of a salon in Gangnam. I highly recommend it!! I loved my glow up. And a lady did my hair too.

(After my makeover!!)

My favourite Korean skincare products- I also bought a ridiculous amount of Korean skincare, you can have a look in the picture below and see some of my favourites. Since Seoul, I’ve now switched to mostly Korean skincare and I absolutely love it, my skin is better than ever. Favs from this lot are the Round Lab’s Birch Juice moisturising sunscreen, D’Alba white truffle serum, I’m From rice toner, SKIN1004 Madagascar Centella ampoule and heavily on rotation is Pyunkang Yul’s moisture cream which I religiously use everyday.

Secondhand shopping - This year, a lot of my favourite purchases in my wardrobe have been from resellers, like this Alaia Le Coeur bag I found secondhand for half the retail price on Vestiaire Collective. I never expected this bag to be my ‘most-used’ accessory but I love it to pieces and I want it in white and red now. One of my goals for 2024 is to shop more secondhand and vintage - I frequently also browse on TheRealReal, Depop, and occasionally eBay.

The best kitchen equipment- Another favourite purchase is my Phillips air fryer - I never expected myself to fall in love with this lol. But it is amazing and the food we have made has been so good. Crispy ‘fried’ wantons in 5 minutes? Yes please! Crispy pork belly with the crackling skin in an hour without prep work. Hell yeah!!! FRIES??? Need I say more? All without the hassle of deep frying and having to deal with the oil It’s so easy to use and clean up afterwards. We have a tiny kitchen, and the air fryer is rather bulky - I slept beside it on my side of the bed for a week but no regrets. I like the convenience of having an air fryer - especially for weeknight meals when you want something quick and easy without making a mess in the kitchen. There is so much you can do with it. And for someone who loves cooking, saying that I like it means a lot.

Dinner at the Agafay in December - Last month, I celebrated my birthday in Marrakech with 21 of my close friends and I hosted a welcome dinner in the Agafay desert, it was my third time in the Agafay - only located about 40km south of Marrakech and there are various luxury camps to experience. I think the highlight for all my guests was really the desert experience - we were greeted with traditional Moroccan music the moment we arrived at the camp and served some hot mint tea before taken to the top of a cliff to see the sunset. It was magic!! Then we got escorted back to our private tent where we drank and gazed at the stars, ate delicious tagine and danced to traditional soul music. If you ever need a ‘winter’ holiday - Morocco! It was 30 degrees in the day and cool in the night. And if you’re looking for an authentic experience in the desert but don’t have time to travel to the Sahara , then go to the Agafay - it’s perfect for even just sunset and dinner. Or to spend the night. We spent our epic evening at Inara Camp and the staff were the most accommodating bunch, I couldn’t have been happier with our time there.

Soto Ayam - My favourite thing I made this year is Soto Ayam, a traditional Indonesian chicken soup with turmeric and other spices. I love this soup!! And I am usually lazy so I buy a paste but I live in Stockholm, and it’s impossible to find here. So I had to make it from scratch. I used this recipe - and also made begedil, which are potato patties with minced meat and deep fried. It turned out amazing - the broth is so rich and comforting. I could have this everyday.

I guess that’s it for now - I apologise for this super longwinded post but I believe good things must be shared, right? I’m signing out, and thank you for reading. I hope 2024 is going to be wonderful for all of us. Happy new year!

For someone who works as somewhat of a food stylist and photographer, I am aware that this picture of my broth looks very sad. But it’s medicine, so maybe it doesn’t need to look that pretty! But I promise you it does wonders for anyone down with a cold.

Secondly, Johan and I viewed some apartments over the weekend. We have been speaking about buying a place together for awhile and I had one that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about so I booked us in to view it (with no intention of putting in an offer). I’m not going to lie, nothing we viewed was perfect or made me see any ‘potential’ and I started feeling very disappointed on our walk home (exactly when the cold kicked in and I just started feeling ugh, bleargh?) The thing about viewing homes for purchase here is they make it look so perfect and have such a small window (45 minutes) for whoever wants to view it. People come in and out, it’s open to anyone. And an agent will probably ring you up the next day to see if you’re keen on bidding on the place. In Singapore, it’s so different and I’ve viewed homes where the whole family is still lying on the sofa, feet up on the table, going about their day, watching the telly. Whatever it is, it made me feel happy that we were taking this first step together as a couple to owning a home together, after all we have been together 6 and a half years now. On our walk home, we passed by one of my favourite vintage home furnishing stores to pick up a pair of brass lamps we bought back in July in Johan’s hometown - they were closing shop and everything was on 50% off! We had spoken to the owner before and since he had a store in Stockholm, he offered to bring them here for us. What a deal!!!!

The lamp is Swedish, and from the 60s. I think it’s beautiful. The thing is our current flat is so small and we have no space for the other lamp so it might have to go into storage for a bit…..Half of the stuff in this photo are recent vintage finds and looking at them everyday make me happy. The sculpture I found in a charity shop here for 5 euros? The gold plated seashell is actually measuring tape I found at Porta Portese in Roma and the marble fruit (!!!!!) are from a vintage shop also in Johan’s hometown. I couldn’t stop thinking about them, emailed the store a few weeks later and the owner shipped them to me at no expense. Small business owners here are pretty kind and I have absolutely no complaints!

I have fallen in love with a little neighbourhood in Stockholm and went twice last week to hang out with my friend, Sanna. We couldn’t have had the more perfect Saturday. The sun was shining, and there was a market selling handicrafts, artisanal foods and vintage. There are also so many little shops in the neighbourhood, with cute bakeries and wine bars scattered all around. We bought pizza from the coziest joint below her apartment and ate it in the garden behind her house with wine. Gamla Enskede is for me! I feel warm and fuzzy when I think about it. I want to move there!!

I love the interactions I have with locals here in my neighbourhood, we are not friends with any of our neighbours unfortunately BUT its the small things like how I engage with my laundry guy and post office guy - I am sorry I don’t know their names. I have no clue why they find me funny - the post office guy for example, always repeats my name ‘Melody…Melody’ when he sees me and smiles at me. I didn't have a Swedish ID for a long time so I was hard to forget? And he knows when Johan is picking up parcels for me and lets him off if he forgets my ID with a cheeky little grin. I never have these interactions back home, except with my tailor but that story is for another day. Sometimes I literally plan when to drop off my laundry or parcels on gloomy days just to have a little ‘perk me up’ - these interactions are important to me and they keep me going when I feel lonely. Anyway I feel like if I moved to Gamla Enskede I’m going to make friends with all my neighbors and all the owners of the small vintage shops. A girl can dream right? Johan thinks it’s too far away from the city for us to move there but it’s only 8 stops to the city center on the metro, that’s 20 minutes maximum!

One of my favourite discoveries in Stockholm is an authentic Thai noodle shop about a 10 minute walk from home. It’s full of Thai people and there is a separate menu for them. I’ve been a regular for awhile and when I was in Bangkok for my layover last week I excitedly bought the staff some snacks, including 500grams of sticky rice from a famous Mango Sticky Rice stall in Thonglor. It is so random, I know, and Johan thinks it’s ‘funny’ but ‘cool’. Another friend said I was ‘mental’ The guy that runs the noodle shop is abit of a character, he never smiles at anyone and even when I make a little joke, his face remains straight but he’ll teach me a Thai word or two in return, and make remarks like how I love everything on the menu when I bring new people over. The other ladies who cook though, are a sweet bunch. When I arrived last week with the snacks they were so happy they were bowing at me with the ‘wai’ - the placing of palms together. I didn't stay for food though and am due for a visit soon, but I was glad I did that for them, the look on their faces were priceless, even the mister lit up.

Stockholm has been absolutely lovely with the weather and I am embracing it to the fullest before the gloom and doom arrives. In just a month, the daylight savings will end and the clock will set back one hour. Ask any Swede, no one is ever ready for the harsh winters here. But we have another month to enjoy the end of the summer months and I will scoot back to Singapore when the cold becomes too much for me to bear. Ha!

As a little girl who dreamt of being America’s Next Top Model (I kid you not) who would become Karl Lagerfeld’s muse (a girl can dream) - imagine my excitement when the brands I started to work with and would pay me were these very luxury fashion brands whose campaigns I would cut out from magazines and make mood boards out of in my childhood bedroom. I was gifted shoes from Chanel, and got the opportunity to produce content for the brand, starring me. And I was getting paid for it! I couldn’t be happier. It was honestly a dream.

My following never really rapidly grew overnight - it was very slow and steady but I had loyal followers who loved it when I shared my travels and stories of people I’d meet along the way. It’s my own decision I never made a real business and career out of it. I never invested the money to go to fashion week because it gave me so much social anxiety. I don’t have the energy to PR with people over lunch and have fake conversations so I can get on another list.

I was on the ‘PR list’ as they call it back in Singapore. How it works is you’re gifted or loaned a product that you’d have to ‘endorse’ and post about. But as I slowly relocated to Stockholm, the gifts became less frequent. I wasn’t able to have them shipped here, the brands simply wouldn’t do it. I struggled so much to find my identity here when I first moved, I had no friends in the creative or fashion industry here. I couldn’t find someone who understood my obsession with beautiful clothes. And shoes. And bags. I turned to freelance creative work. And that’s what I do now! You can call me a jack of all trades, but a master of none.

I’ve chosen a lifestyle that has allowed me to also work completely remote and I am travelling more than ever before. This is not something for everyone because it’s a lifestyle that lacks stability. And god, you know how when you watch those ‘day in the life’ or ‘morning routine’ videos of famous people and they all wake up at like 5. Well not me, I wake up at 11 and I am not ashamed of it. I don’t work very ‘hard’ per se, but I am a strong believer of working smart.

I could be spending a week in a chateau in the south of France styling a campaign or 2 days in London producing a shoot. I occasionally still get social media work if I am lucky and I do count my blessings. One of my current clients, happens to be a friend of mine and I can officially say I LOVE the work she gives me. She runs her own ceramic brand in Los Angeles and I shoot content for her, and also recipes which I develop and contribute to her site. To be honest, I don’t know why she chose me for the job because she has a wonderful team that works with her and she could simply get any other photographer or chef in LA. But she’s always been this one friend who really believes in what I do and always gives me these brilliant opportunities that are so hard to pass up. She even wants to fly me to LA to host a supper club with her ceramics. I am not even a chef! Thats literally how much she believes in me.

I’ve been cooking so much, and I get to style and plate my food in her beautiful ceramics and the work is not easy but I enjoy it, even though I work totally alone. I even brought the plates with me to Puglia when I was just there last week so I could plate some local produce on it and take pictures. Working with food is like therapy. This self-reflective phase I am going through made me think today as I sat in my balcony how it’s actually been such a big shift. From dreaming to work in fashion to now working in my humble little kitchen in my Stockholm apartment. From knowing and rubbing shoulders with the who’s who in Singapore to being absolutely nobody here in Stockholm. Am I happier? I think so. Do I miss it? Not really.

I don’t exactly know the longevity of this, and maybe at some point I am going to need to have a more stable lifestyle. And I still believe I will go back to fashion one day. For now, I am still just a girl who loves her clothes and occasionally poses in front of the camera, for the only reason that it makes me happy. In a perfect world, I’d like to own a little boutique that also doubles as a cafe in the day serving simple small plates that I cook. It will become a natural wine bar at night, obviously. And I will source vintage fashion from my travels and sell it in the shop. (Oh, and a farm house in Italy which I will turn into a bed and breakfast that also has a donkey named Raviolo)

Like I said, my lifestyle is not for everyone and people always ask how I afford it, however it’s always been a choice to put myself first. I can live pay check to pay check and buy the next flight out or splurge half on it on a dress, that’s been me for a long time, I only started a savings account 2 years ago (adulting is hard). I can also say, I live a very colourful life because my life is simply… not normal. This year alone has been amazing, I started the year with 2 months in Asia travelling and spending time back home. In March I did a cooking class in Puglia and had the best week ever. The list goes on, and I’m not even done yet. It’s not realistic for many, but it is for me.

So that’s bit about me! And how I afford to travel every month and wear pretty clothes.


Well here are 2 pictures from today, one of my little kitchen and the miso mushroom risotto I cooked as part of a recipe I am developing and shooting. Work is not really ‘work’ if you enjoy it, eh?

Ps, don’t work too hard.

Bye!

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