The Peaceful Belly Kitchen

Fiction story 2nd instalment

Last Friday I posted the first instalment of a fiction book I’m writing called The Peaceful Belly Kitchen, to which there will be an accompanying cookbook that I will write afterwards. The first four instalments are free for everyone so you can see if this creative project is something you would like to support as a paying subscriber.

In the fiction book I will weave together Ayurveda and good food into a great little story. It will be a heart-warming book that tells the story of The Peaceful Belly Kitchen, a place where people come to heal, where there’s one rule, no one talks about what they are healing, they just enjoy food and each others company, and slowly, slowly, with the warmth of mellow times and food to heal mind and body; their lives change.

This book is going to be warm and magical, yet rooted in all the simple things that make life good and us healthy, told through the story of The Peaceful Belly Kitchen, and those that go there.

The second book, Recipes from The Peaceful Belly Kitchen will be a cookbook with all the recipes from food described in The Peaceful Belly Kitchen, and more!

This week I’m including the short initial instalment I posted last week, because that post had a long explanation in it, and I didn’t want you to have to scrawl through all of that.

In future these weekly Friday instalments will not be too long, and there will be a link to the previous one. I’ll pop up how long the read is each time.

Today’s read is 8 minutes long.

The Peaceful Belly Kitchen

To get to The Peaceful Belly Kitchen you can climb over a style, or there is a little gap next to the style that you can squeeze through. Once over the style you find yourself on a pathway that runs through woodland. It’s a small woodland and within 10 minutes you are out the other side and in a field where you find, The Peaceful Belly Kitchen.

It’s a surprise!

Those that have heard of it, have been coming here for a very long time, even before it existed! And those people, well, that’s what this story is all about. And of course, the food!

Let me start at the beginning.

Year 2002

Pierre, was out walking. Changes had happened and he had to think about what to do; about that.

In his younger years, Pierre had dreamed of being a chef, but that didn’t happen. His life direction was already plotted out for him before he was even born; a good education, a good profession — lawyer — a beautiful wife, 3 perfect children who would have a good education, good professions, beautiful homes where they lived with their perfect partners and children; lives filled with everything anyone could possibly wish for. Of course life has its ups and downs and sometimes harsh experiences, but all in all this played out seemingly very well.

That is, until Pierre retired. At this point Pierre divorced his wife, changed his name and told everyone his whole life had been a lie.

And that, is how Pierre found himself getting off a bus on a country lane in England, climbing over a style and wandering, thoughtfully, through a little wood in the spring time, where wild garlic carpeted the ground.

Year 1978

Pierre awoke to the sun shining through the tree branches outside their bedroom window. The curtains were not drawn and baubles of golden light played on the white painted bedroom wall, which matched the white cotton sheets, pillow cases and duvet cover. Pierre had woken to that familiar lurch in his stomach that had always caused him to do what was expected of him in life. But today, was a different kind of day, because lying between them was a little bundle of joy, eyes closed, warm and snuggled.

Beatrice, Pierre’s partner, lay on her side, eyes also closed and her body having some much deserved rest. Pierre stared at them both trying to identify the feelings. He thought they were joy.

There was warmth running through him and he didn’t want to stop drinking in this nectar, that had arrived in their lives. The first of three children, a daughter, who would soon be called Janine.

Year 2019

“The falling down tree wood” shouted out Elsie, “you have to go there!”

Elsie called it the falling down tree wood, because there were three little streamlets that flowed through the bottom end, merging together by one of two entrances that led into this small, but quite magical wood.

In the winter when the rains came these streamlets, though slender; gushed. Water expanded out as the streamlets joined together and overflowed their narrow trajectories, flooding the bottom part of the wood. Sometimes the young trees were uprooted and fell, creating bridges and dams across what became by springtime, three slender streams once again.

In the summer children came and played on the tree trunk bridges and built their own dams, and adults picnicked, listening to the sounds of wood pigeons, crows, and the gentle trickle of water; clear and sparkling across pebbles, tiny stones and wet squelchy mud dark as dark. You could smell the smell of earthy things.

Year 2015

Elsie had discovered the wood, although more true to say her kids had discovered it, by accident.

It was half term and Elsie was out for a wander with her two sons. They were taking photos of all the magnolia trees they could find; a summer holiday project.

As they walked along a particular road with houses on one side and a grass bank on the other, they turned a corner and found themselves hiking up a hilly, winding, out of town street, that had been part of a field of market gardens a couple of hundred years ago. Some of the houses in this area had gardens with apple trees from ancient orchards.

It was up this stretch of hilly street that Elsie stopped and stared at the biggest magnolia tree she had ever seen, in full brilliant deep mauve bloom with leaves of rich green. But what really struck her was the trunk, twirling and curving in unbelievable ways. As her eyes took this in, she realised that the part of the trunk she was now looking at wasn’t a trunk at all! It was a sculpture, cleverly coloured the same tones as the tree trunk, it was a sculpture of the “green man”. Only this green man was the colour of the tree trunk.

Elsie was staring at this when her sons spotted a road opposite that said no through road and, no entry. There was a kind of wooden trestle barrier thing set up, and on the other side of this, an old lane where tarmac had cracked and green things grew through. Her sons shouted, “WE HAVE TO GO UP THERE!”

Year 2016

“The green man is a term coined by Lady Raglan in March 1939 in an article she wrote for the ‘Folklore’ journal.” said the tour guide.

Archie was skint so he decided to do an Airbnb experience, taking tourists on a tour of his towns outer green spaces and introducing them to old things, and old rhythm. He helped people slow down. His favourite story at the moment was “The Green Man”.

“Lady Raglan said that the foliate head design seen everywhere staring down at us, in European medieval church decoration of the eleventh to sixteenth centuries, was taken from an ancient pagan icon of fertility. However, according to an article in The New Yorker earlier this year, that is total bunk, ‘…extremely popular bunk…’. the article said. Not everyone agrees with this, but really,” said Archie yawning now, looking up at the sky, then down at his feet, “does it really matter?”

Archie was silent, the crowd of three on his tour, stared at him. A magpie chatak chataked, a rabbit darted, but everyone’s eyes were on Archie.

Archie looked back at his tour group, it had been happening quite a lot recently; Archie, was bored.

“Well” said Archie, “I mean a story is a story isn’t it, and the story of the Green Man is a celebration of life, of new beginnings, a celebration of nature. It may have been invented in 1939, for a world which was beginning to need this symbol of natures abundance, a world in which people were gradually realising how industrialisation was robbing them of the things they needed to be, well, well and”

“Mum when can we go?” Elsie smiled at her eldest son, then grinned at her youngest, looked up at Archie, said sorry, pulled a face. Archie looked at the ground, took a deep breath, looked up, then smiled. “Time for tea” he said, “there’s a cafe over that hill that sells the best ice cream.

Year 2002

Once inside the wood Pierre saw a trail, leading forward and downhill through trees with branches crossing over themselves above him. Nettles, a few ferns, and wild garlic covering the ground. He breathed in the pungent, oniony smell which came in great gusts as he trampled some of the wild garlic; it was impossible not to, the carpet was everywhere and so thick. He breathed it deeply in as he made his way down through the trees, ducking this way and that. Enjoying the pure pleasure of not having to think about anything except where to place his feet…to be continued…