9am — Breakfast. My husband is an early-riser and a coffee-addict, so I usually wake up to the smell of coffee. I often prepare something simple – almost always involving eggs – and we enjoy a slow unhurried breakfast.
11am — Market. Every weekend, my husband and I do our groceries. Though we do pick up the occasional item from the supermarket, the bulk of the fruits and vegetables we eat come from the market. I do not go to the market with a grocery list or a set expectation in mind. Rather, I often let myself be led by how beautiful a certain fruit or vegetable looks, feels or smells. Some days, I might notice some vivid green brussels sprouts that are just begging to be bought. On others, I might be drawn to pomegranates that feel ripe and heavy in the hand. How can one be inspired by supermarket produce when it is smothered in plastic packaging?
1pm — Lunch. Melbourne is such a great city to live in if you love food. There are so many great options. One I chanced upon recently is Lentil as Anything. Run by volunteers, it is a vegan restaurant with a social mission. As you enter the restaurant, you grab your cutleries and join a buffet line of steaming curries and rendang. At the end of your meal, you pay what you think the meal is worth. By abolishing price tags and functioning on the basis of trust and community spirit, the restaurant hopes to provide a great dining experience for everyone, regardless of their bank balance.
3pm — Explore. Being new to the city, my husband and I love to explore our surroundings. We especially love being out in green spaces. From a cook’s perspective, being out in nature gives me a deeper appreciation for an ingredient – be it plant or animal. One is unlikely to feel for a bag of chicken on a reduced-to-clear discount at the supermarket. But watching a breathing, living chicken scratching at soil cultivates a more intimate relationship between the eater and his or her food. This manifests itself in treating the animal with respect in the cooking and eating process. I also can never resist picking some fresh herbs and plants from the outdoors to cook and to adorn the house with.
6pm — Dinner. The kitchen space in our apartment is tiny, so I try to keep things simple most of the time. The produce we get from the market is so fresh that I try to let it speak of itself, with nothing too over-the-top.
9pm — Journal and read. As an introvert, I value pockets of quiet, particularly at night. I like to make notes about the meals that I cook; some are brief and to-the-point annotations of recipes, others are flowing essays about small kitchen celebrations – moments where the food made me feel something. It seems like a strange thing, in this modern era, to write these things down on paper. But something about the act reminds me of the way my mother used to keep an olive ring-bound recipe journal in her kitchen, stained and dog-eared from years of use. Before I sleep, I also like to read – my current bedside companion is Paul Bertolli’s Cooking by Hand.
12am — Sleep.
We created these pieces to be fit for all occasions, championing the ethos of living better with less. A Day In The Life is a series grounded on the belief that our pieces are made for the everyday, essentials that can carry you through long days and even longer nights. Pamelia is wearing The Lounge Lunghi + Falcon Footprint, Size 1. You can find more of her cooking here.