Serving Up Inspiration: Friends, Poetry, Food, and Art. Meet Annelies @thefoodpoet.com

TheFoodPoet.com – Annelies brings joy into our lives (pictured: Annelies, Jean, and I)

My friend Annelies is one of the most beautiful people I know, both inside and out. She sees beauty in (even the most obscure things) life.  Even more special, Annelies always makes me smile and my soul feel warm.  She is a true friend. Her writing, photos, and perspectives have a way of adding little extra happiness into my day (plus, I can read her blog no matter where I’m traveling).

Today we are celebrating Annelies’ newly re-branded blog, The Food Poet.com (formerly La Vie en Route).  Annelies and TheFoodPoet.com put out a challenge: [to foodies] share an inspirational poet or enticing poem; [to her poet/writer/creative types] share a recipe or chef that makes you want to get in the kitchen and cook.

Who would ever turn down inspiration?  Not me.  So, I’m excited to introduce Annelies — my inspirational poet friend, and two of her posts (recipes in different ways) that I absolutely love.

Follow Annelies’ party @thefoodpoet or #foodpoetryparty on Twitter.

1.  Favorite [what I ate this summer] food inspirations - Earlier this year, while cooking and reviewing her way through Seamus Mullen’s Hero Foods book, Annelies deliciously remade Seamus’ Chilled Carrot Soup with Tarragon and Yogurt recipe (pg 186, she also cooked other dishes from the book. Coincidentally, this specific recipe can be converted into a low sodium version).

Annelies cooking Mullen’s easy Chilled Carrot Soup with Tarragon and Yogurt

Enamored with Seamus’ book, she encouraged me to “go buy a copy now!” to serve as my pre-Spain trip inspiration — which ended up being a spectacular idea! This past summer,  not only did I drool over the cookbook photos while sitting on the plane ride over the pond, I used the book as a pocket reference guide while traveling – a “what to eat while in Spain” kind-of-thing.  Double the pleasure, double the fun!

2.  Favorite Food and Art Perspectives – Annelies’ perspective on “Do the Work: the Art and Soul of Craft.”

From Annelies’ blog, TheFoodPoet.com – Do the Work: the Art and Soul of Craft

Also earlier this year, Annelies and I both signed up for Andrew Scrivani’s photography workshop hosted at Contigo Restaurant in San Francisco (you can read about it here ). While we ended up attending Andrew’s session on different days (a little like two ships passing in the night where the workshop was concerned), I simply loved Annelies’ perspective and her blog post that came out of the class, titled “Do the Work: the Art and Soul of Craft.” No matter how you cut it, the class ended up being a triple inspiration weekend – great perspectives, great art, and great food (though, not exactly low sodium)

Now that you’ve just drooled all over her photos – scoop your chin off the floor and catch up with the poetry party! I really hope you enjoy reading her blog.  I know I do.

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P.S.  Today is my first official day being at home in LA, having just wrapped up a Travel-Around-the-World summer tour.  Jet lagged and exhausted.  Once I catch up on sleep and burn my travel clothes, there’ll be more tasty bites, interesting stories, and fun adventures to read about… because I definitely did not stay out of trouble!  Just ask Sue, Nancy and George.  They [unfortunately] had to hear about all of my travel trials, as our Greek Food festival kept getting delayed!  We’ll be back to blogging about Greek Food later this week! Stay tuned!