Cake Therapy
Cake Therapy is a heartwarming and uplifting podcast that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. Hosted by Dr. Altreisha Foster, the passionate baker, entrepreneur and advocate behind Cake Therapy, this podcast is a delightful blend of inspiring stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode takes listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking.
Cake Therapy
Food & Being: Discovering Emotional Wellness in the Kitchen with Lexie Grech
Ever wondered how food can heal more than just hunger? Join us in this heartwarming episode of the Cake Therapy Podcast as we welcome the incredible Lexie Grech, a cooking therapy coach and founder of Food Wellbeing. Lexie shares her wisdom on the profound connection between culinary arts and emotional well-being, drawing inspiration from cultural touchstones like "Ratatouille" and "Encanto." We explore how food can bring people together, foster a sense of community, and serve as a powerful tool for mental health, especially for women and girls.
We reminisce about Lexie's childhood, cooking with my grandfather Joe, where the kitchen became a sanctuary for processing emotions and finding peace. These early experiences laid the foundation for her appreciation of food as a source of wellness. We delve into how culinary arts can provide a sense of purpose and passion, even helping us navigate life's tough moments, like leaving a challenging job in 2017. These personal stories highlight the importance of having a space to be authentic and free from societal pressures.
Lexi and I also discuss the healing power of cooking after personal loss, and how embracing failure in the kitchen can foster creativity and resilience. We emphasize the need for personalized approaches in food therapy to create sustainable habits and foster open, non-judgmental dialogue. As we look towards the future, we touch on Lexi's plans for community outreach in Northwest London, aiming to combat loneliness post-COVID through the transformative power of food therapy. Tune in for an episode rich with heartfelt stories and valuable insights.
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Welcome to the Cake Therapy Podcast, a slice of joy and healing with your host, Dr Altricia Foster.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Cake Therapy Podcast, your slice of joy and healing. As usual, we bring on exciting guests on our podcast, on our show, and today is no different. I'm your host, dr Altricia Foster, and today's guest is Mrs Lexi Gregg. Lexi is amazing. We chit chat online all the time, but Lexi Gregg is a cooking therapy coach. She's the gluten-free recipe creator, she helps you to find connection and resourcefulness through cooking and she's the founder and CEO of Food Wellbeing. Welcome, lexi.
Speaker 3:Hello Altricia. Thank you so much for having me here.
Speaker 2:Of course I'm really honored that you say yes. I'm honored when anyone says yes to come and have these types of conversations with us on the Cake Therapy Podcast. I know like our listenership has been growing and we're super excited that this platform is connecting with people.
Speaker 3:It's wonderful, I think, um, we're having a moment. I mean when I say that, I mean we're having a moment in the mainstream media, um, movies and serious and you know, later on we can delve into particular bits and pieces of these if you want just things that I tend to collect to have as evidence, um, when I talk about what I do and why it's having a moment. So this is a really important conversation to have right now and thank you for making it happen. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:You know I'm really delighted to have you in this space because so much of what we do aligns, you know, aligns with the objective of Cake Therapy, the Cake Therapy Foundation, and how we both want, you know, people to have great mental health, prioritize their well-being, and especially to women and girls. So we will talk about women and girls a little bit later. So I'm excited to take a deep dive into what you do, why you do it, and I also want to talk about the moment that you think this food and culinary art is having right now.
Speaker 3:So welcome again, thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate yeah, I really appreciate everything you're doing. As you said, we've had conversations. A lot of our values align in terms of connecting to the deeper purpose of us humans through the kitchen space, be it baking, cooking. There's just so much to learn and so much to absorb in that space to just nourish ourselves and when I say nourish, I mean nourish ourselves holistically.
Speaker 3:I mean not just, you know, by the beauty and the deliciousness of the food, but it's also like nourishing our soul, our mind. I just think it's gorgeous?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And what I love in this moment is that people are taking stock of mental health, but not only that. They're taking stock of the value of food right now, and what I'm enjoying is just this community that, like I believe that we're building it's it's so authentic, it's friendly and it's just so full of purpose. So I'm just really excited to see what happens in the next couple of years.
Speaker 3:I'm there with you. I mean every time a new movie comes out and a new like series hits the top five on a streaming service, like there is food and it is connected. I mean, can I mention some of my favorite moments in the last two years? I mean, starting from one of my favorite Disney movies, ratatouille. There is that moment when Anton Ego is having that Ratatouille and he just goes right back to his mom's kitchen and he's having that moment where he's connecting with his inner child and the real joy and the real purpose. And then, even to stay on the same line, encanto, one of the superpowers, was the mom, julieta, who could heal with her food. And you know that healing went beyond the healing of the physical injuries. You know it was. That was amazing. And then, you know, there were series like Sex Education.
Speaker 3:We saw the character development of Adam's father I think he was called Michael Groff and you know, know he was doing all of these sort of changes in his life and and he realized he wasn't living an authentic life. And how did he go back to himself? He did it by baking in the kitchen. He rediscovered the joy that he used to feel out of his mom's food and his family and all of that. And then, last but not least I just can't not mention this the Barbie movie. You know, when Barbie meets her creator, where do they meet? They meet in the kitchen, um, and Barbie goes in and says you know something on the lines of what is this place? And and the creator says you know, I, I do some of my best, thinking at the kitchen table and I mean what moments?
Speaker 3:to celebrate what we're all about.
Speaker 2:All of these moments speak to our purpose exactly and like there's such alignment with with the stories that you share here, like we experience these emotions and these similar feelings in the kitchen and then we immediately connect with those moments in these movies that, yes, it does that for me. But then how can we get to someone else to say, listen, it works, it works, it does this for me. Let's try and see if any art form, if it's not just kitchen, let's try and talk about alternative art forms that can really help you connect and evoke, you know, these emotions within you.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, there comes a point in our life, you know, when we're young, it's all about exploring our world through play. You know we go through a phase where we put everything in our mouth because we're exploring the world through taste. And you know, the world around us expects us to be creative in our exploration. You know painting, or you know, in my case, I got into the kitchen at a very early age, but there was an expectation that I explore my world creatively, and then there came a point where that was just taken away from me and the world expected me to grow up. And you know, just everything else was a hobby. You know I had to like study for books, and I know that this is an experience that happens to most of us, and somehow the world just asks us to stop playing to stop exploring and understanding the world through play, and I think it's such a shame, because we all want to play and we all want to explore through our senses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I also think that there is something that developmentally for us, or I would say maybe even socially, where we feel like at some point that we have to also stop playing right. The world tells us that you have to stop playing and start moving towards other I would say conventional forms of play right, like go play in the courtroom, go play in the hospital, be a physician, be a lawyer. So I think we are so indoctrinated into thinking that play stops. You know after childhood that we can't do this Right now. It's like wasting time. It's no longer play. You have to play at a different level, in a different field.
Speaker 3:And we are here to tell the world that that's not true. We're here to tell the world to play and to explore through the senses and creativity, and it's such a beautiful movement that is being created.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because what I've noticed in having recorded past conversations is that a lot of us stopped playing Well, not for me, because I wasn't really playing in the kitchen before I started baking, but a lot of our guests were playing in the kitchen at an early age but then stopped to pursue college degrees and then they came back because they simply couldn't function without art. So it's just, I mean, look at me, you know, I went all the way through college, right, and then here I am, baking, like finding my purpose through baking and the Cake Therapy Foundation. So it's's really, it's a phenomenal time. It's like what a time to be alive, what a time to be able to bake and play and what a time to be pioneering this.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know the guests you have on your, on your this, this beautiful podcast. I love listening to it. Um, you know, I I just sometimes I have to like pinch myself that the same podcast that had people like Ron Ben Israel is having me as a guest. But you know it just I think of my younger self and I'd be like, oh, what a moment. But you know, we're, we're at the forefront of all of this. We are, we are telling the world something that the world hasn't really had the time to stop and listen to before.
Speaker 3:And you know foundations like yours and I know that in London there are a few similar foundations doing similar things especially, you know, with women who have faced social injustice or, you know, have had to, um, have had to escape from, you know, gender-based violence or domestic violence, environments, and I just think what a powerful way to change, you know, help people realise that there's an alternative, that they can change their world around in the kitchen space, because what came before us has been a movement telling women to step out of the kitchen. Right, it's always. You know, the kitchen has, in the last few years, has had a very bad connotation with what it means to be a woman in the kitchen, and that's you know. It's something I always come back to because we are saying it differently. We're saying women can be in the kitchen if it's their choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep it is a choice, yeah, but then women started in the kitchen, isn't it like? Absolutely, you know, women have always been in the kitchen and then they said, okay, you, you can leave now, but then, yeah, realizing then, stepping out of the kitchen, what women have actually lost oh, my goodness, do you know?
Speaker 3:I was reading a really interesting articles and then I sort of like went a bit down the rabbit hole with this. But of how many movements started in the kitchen space? Yeah, like even movements that are globally well known, like the suffragettes. They had so many parts of the movement that started in kitchens. Kitchens are where movements are born. I believe that even like the Me Too movement had an instant of like beginning in the kitchen there's so many.
Speaker 3:You know things that happened there and I think you're so right. You know we somehow were. There was a point in time where the narrative of women being in the kitchen space not even you know women Now there is a bit of a shake up. But you know, for a very long time, the top chefs, you know, we had lists and lists of men, right, and I feel like we're at a place where we're owning it back. We're owning it back differently and we're telling the world we're here, we're in the kitchen, we're proud, we're making a difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. So you know, lexi, in prepping for this, for this conversation with you, I recognize that we do have something in common or something else. I had a major connection with my grandfather, with my grandfather. My grandfather, yes, and my grandfather did food. He was the chef in my family and in recognition of that, I was like, oh my God, I can understand her gravitation towards her grandfather. So I got to meet your grandfather through all this preparation. So, joe, right, that's your grandfather. Tell me a little bit about your Mediterranean roots, right, who was next to you as a little girl and how much of that foundation was informed by Joe?
Speaker 3:Oh, joe, honestly, Joe is he. He is in my you know, know he's. He's passed on quite a few years ago, but he is so present with me in my kitchen. I call him my purpose partner, um, in everything I do, and and I'll take you right back. But to start from where I am now, the the name food and being, food and being comes specifically from my experience in the kitchen with my granddad From a very young age.
Speaker 3:When I was about four years old, my mom got sick and she was diagnosed with a form of cancer and she was getting treatment for it, and so my grandparents, her parents, so the maternal grandparents, stepped in and did a lot of the sort of raising at the time, because my dad, bless his heart, was just working day in, day out to make sure that we were, you know, we could get my mom the best treatment possible, and we were set. And so my grandparents stepped in and my granddad used to take me and allow me to be in his kitchen. He, he was a chef in in his heyday. He, he was a head chef in a restaurant and he also cooked in at the palace where the Queen of England resided when she came to Malta and so he was, you know, used to like really delicious food and all of that. But once he retired he just put all of that into his family and he just cooked for us. And when I say cooked for us, he treated us like royalty, honestly, like banquets. But in the day to day, especially when I used to be there, and obviously for a four year old, those are big emotions right To be away from, and I'm an only child I, me and my mom were, you know, like attached at the limb. Honestly. I mean, we were just an extension of each other. We're very different people, but she just was my everything and I was her everything. So to have that swept away from you because she was spending a lot of time in hospital and all of that, it was a huge thing.
Speaker 3:So my granddad managed to create this incredible space in the kitchen where we used to sit and he used to allow me to do things he would never allow anyone else to do, like chop parsley really badly and just go with it. And he used to just have this, make this facial expression when he would see what I'd made. He's just like, oh, but he wouldn't say anything, he would just fix it, and we would. We would just keep going and he would get me to stir the sauces and and smell them and know what to add. Or you know, tell me, tell me, you know I'll add a little water here or whatever.
Speaker 3:And when I was thinking about this and what I would go on to do with with that, you know he wasn't a big talker so we didn't have like big meaningful conversations in the kitchen. There used to be food and we would just be and that's where food and being came from. It's not food and being good food and being well, it's just being. And there was a lot of peace and serenity and processing that happened for me in that space and I'm sure he had no idea what he was doing and what he was planting in me doing and what he was planting in me. But everything I do I do it because he was there to create a safe space for me to process big emotions that little kids just aren't equipped to do. Absolutely yeah, that's that's where the name comes from and that's how my granddad, joe, is represented in what I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know what's interesting? Because I was not in the kitchen per se with my grandfather, but I saw him do these things right and I don't think that they knew exactly what they were nurturing, because I don't know that he nurtured the food side of me. But all I know that is that he allowed me to be me in a space, so I can really, definitely I can see we're just being in a space. You know, actually, the lessons that I learned in just being in that space. So for many of our guests like yourself I mean, you know, like yourself they talk about what's common among them when they are in the kitchen. They found peace, passion and purpose, because that's what I found, not just in baking but just in the culinary art form. But once they found that, what they've also found is that there's a mental and emotional wellness. You know that they find with that. Do you experience the same thing? Is it true for you? Do you find the same peace, passion, purpose in what you're doing?
Speaker 3:I find everything and anything in the kitchen. It was so unconscious for me I didn't realize for a very long time what the kitchen meant for me. It was only until sort of, I think, back in 2017, when I'd left my last full-time job and I decided that whatever I go into to do next needed to be very different and I started doing my coaching, training, um, and I remember obviously you're doing the training, but you're also learning about yourself, right? Yes, you're your own first client, kind of thing. And I remember stepping into the kitchen with raised self-awareness and I was just like, my goodness, I'm happy and I'm cooking, I'm sad and I'm cooking, I'm confused and I'm cooking, I'm angry and I'm cooking.
Speaker 3:And all of a sudden, it just I just became aware of how every emotion I feel I have to process it in the kitchen space. Yeah, and it just got me thinking like, how did I get to this point? And I think that's where it made me realise sort of the connection of me spending such a difficult time of my life in the kitchen space, what that allowed me to do and find and I think, going back to what you said, just focusing on that being thing that you also mentioned. That is so special because we don't get a lot of spaces in our lives where we go and just be when we attend, where we're present. We're expected to be a certain way to be professional in a work environment, to be fun with friends, to be loving in relationships, to be, you know, as women. There's a lot of expectations of obedience in different aspects of life and in different cultures, but in the kitchen space we can just be whatever we want to be and I think that is just the most powerful thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Do you think you mentioned that in 2017, when you decided to walk away from your last full-time job? Do you think that that job kind of prepared you for this purposeful work that you're doing now?
Speaker 3:You know it was a really tough job for me. I haven't really spoken much about it. It was a job where I learned a lot and it was so formational for me, but it was something that like. It was a job that was all encompassing and required a lot of my energy and during it I was experiencing one of my darkest mental health blips and what I was realizing was that I was constantly looking for a high of you know, delivering projects and doing more and putting more of my energy and then coming home and just that purpose was just never being met. It was just a huge anticlimax every time and it got to a point where I saw myself giving so much in a place where I really didn't have a place where to give from. My cup was so empty.
Speaker 3:So what that job did other than prepare me for life in terms of you know, the amount of skills it gave me and my ability to present and pitch. And you know now I'm really happy to go and pitch my business confidently because it prepared me so well for it really happy to go and pitch my business confidently because it prepared me so well for it. But what it also did. It made me stop and get clear about my purpose, and I think it was then that I knew that whatever I go on to do after that job would have to fill in two criteria it had to have an element of food, but not as a professional kitchen I never wanted that and it needed to have an impact on people's lives a positive, obviously, impact on people's lives. And what came afterwards was this a lot of work and training and qualifying and exploring until food and being came together to what it is today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I was waiting to ask when did you realize that food and being was it? At which point were you sure that this was Lexi's next and final step?
Speaker 3:You know, there were quite a few iterations. Before food and being, there was me-volution, which was like the evolution of me. There was the good life factor and all of them were stepping stones to food and being. Food and being was finalized. Well, I launched. I launched it on my granddad's birthday in 2021. Um I I went live just because I felt like that would be a really nice way of bringing him into the, into the business um, together. So it's always every time there is like the anniversary of you know how long it's been um that I've been in operation. It's always my granddad's birthday, um.
Speaker 3:But food and being happened actually after a big loss. So I lost my paternal granddad during the pandemic to COVID um, and he was 98 and he was the youngest. So this is my granddad, john the other. I was very blessed with granddads um. He was a gardener and he was just. He was just the joy of life like I've never met any anyone like him. He's just the youngest 98 year old you could have ever met. Um.
Speaker 3:And I lost him very suddenly and it shouldn't have been that way, because he was just so full of life and he was still such a valid part of the community at 98 and, and I think that moment, that loss, it really there were so many other losses around it. You know, I wasn't able to go to Malta, I wasn't able to support my family. Practically none of us made it to the funeral, except for one cousin and one uncle, because everyone else had been in contact with my granddad and so was isolating. The funeral had to happen within nine hours practically of him having passed away. There was just so many secondary losses to it that it was really a moment that made me stop.
Speaker 3:And nothing at that point, nothing felt authentic to me about the good life factor. I couldn't see the good life at that point, because it was. It was tough, you know, it was tough. We were still stuck inside. So many members were being affected by this, this disease going around the world had stopped and, and I think that pause that loss out of it to use sort of a metaphor, a gardening metaphor it something very authentic blossomed. And that's when I realized that whatever I am doing, you know, it's not about feeling good, it's not about feeling anything, it's about meeting people where they're at, and that would be just the being side of things.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Right. So you mentioned the pandemic and, having experienced such great loss, Tell me like what were some of your I would say calming recipes, what were some of the things you were doing in the kitchen to really combat the anxiety and stress during that time.
Speaker 3:It's actually, you know, I didn't go with the curve of. I did try sourdough. I have to admit I did try sourdough for a while. Gluten-free bread baking is quite tough, so I made a few attempts but it got to a point where I was just like it's not really bringing me joy.
Speaker 3:Um, so I did, I did do a lot of cake baking and biscuit making and I bought these little boxes and I was like posting out little treats to my friends, um, who were also very much London based, but obviously we weren't able to meet. So I sort of took to that side of things and then I was experimenting with like different cuisines. I went into like this era of experimenting with like a bit of Japanese and a bit of Vietnamese cuisine. I love those flavors and I'm always interested in because I don't necessarily find them very easily gluten-free. I was very interested in sort of like experimenting in that way and it felt, at a time where we were constrained and made to sort of fit in our box in the house kind of thing, it felt very liberating to experiment in the kitchen.
Speaker 2:So the things you bake, do you have a lot of Mediterranean? Like a Maltese I would say influence, what do you do mostly?
Speaker 3:Do you know? So Maltese cuisine is a really interesting coming together of flavors because it's like southern Italian and then you've got some of the North African flavors coming together just because of our geographical position, like Maltese, right in the middle between the two. So, um, you know like people always smile when I say I put cinnamon in my ragu a la bolognese. You know like, when we in the UK they call it spag bol, spaghetti bolognese, you know we add all of these like nice little spices and all of that. So I would say there is an element of Mediterranean cuisine in the sense that I've always got at least three types of olive oil in my kitchen.
Speaker 3:I absolutely love it. There's always like nice fresh vegetables. You know I love the aubergines, peppers, courgettes, you know, all of those grilled flavors and all of that. But I'm also very open to being inspired by different cuisines. The one thing that I've noticed when it comes to my baking is that we do a lot of almond based bakes. I absolutely love that flavour, and so the bakes tend to be a little less sweet than most people would expect here in the UK. For example, here there's like more buttercream based bakes and all of that, whereas for us there's more, like you know, like citrus and and almonds, and all of these like Mediterranean flavors.
Speaker 3:And I think I I tend to gravitate towards those. If I had to like, say what I bake the most probably.
Speaker 2:Tell me about feelings in terms of like baking you know your Mediterranean-based foods or just doing traditional European meals, etc. Talk to me about what kind of feelings you get from that. Do you get the same type of feeling from cooking different types of cuisine or it just as long as you're in the kitchen, you're good?
Speaker 3:um, being in the kitchen is good. It's a good start, but I do when I cook home food. It's really a time for me to connect to my roots. It's really a time to connect with people I love from a distance, people I lost. I've recently lost my mom back in at the end of 2022.
Speaker 3:And, oh, thank you. And she, she didn't have a love for cooking, but she was a great cook. She, she just made the best food, um, but she, it just didn't bring her as much joy as it did me. Right, the best thing she did was she always allowed me to make a mess, and I think this is so important. You know it's an element that we miss. You know everyone wants their kitchens to be Instagrammable and perfect and pretty, but making a mess in the kitchen, there's so much that comes out of it, and so I think cooking home food and recipes that I associate with my grandparents or my mom or family members, or even just traditional food that I associate with the country, I think it just really grounds me to a level that the other dishes don't.
Speaker 3:I experience other feelings when I'm making new dishes. You know creativity and experimentation, and I like to do new dishes because I think it builds that resilience to failure. I was actually talking to someone about that this morning. I think it's so beautiful because in the kitchen, failure is totally reframed. We don't look at failure in the same way we look at it in life, because when something goes wrong in the kitchen, we're like like okay, so what can I do next time to make it better? What could I change next time? Yeah, but in life, when things go wrong, we're like it's done, it's, you know we're it's, this is not gonna work yes okay, well and and what's also amazing about failing is in the kitchen is the things that's birthed from that failure.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's a failure that gives you this amazing texture texture, it's the failing that gives you this amazing taste. So I think at some point, like when we're in the kitchen, we actually welcome failure at some, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, and the creativity and the problem solving that comes with turning that failure into, say, something edible or, you know, finding a way to get to the heart of it and understand it. It's not what we do in life, it's not what we're trained to do. We're trained to fear failure. We're trained to run away from failure. I mean, I always say about myself I'm a recovering perfectionist and the kitchen really helps me. It really helps me.
Speaker 2:You know, when I think about food and being, I think about the Cake Therapy Foundation and its alignment. When I bake in the kitchen with my mom, when I baked in the kitchen with my mom, we learned to communicate more, learned to communicate more effectively. My mother is going through some health issues right now so we no longer bake, but then I feel that emptiness from not having her in the space with me anymore. But then what I also noticed is that people, when you take cake therapy into spaces, let's say a corporate space, teach people how to cover a cake or a cookie in a space, and you see the interactions, like people are actually communicating with each other and I know that one of the modality for food and being is you talk about this individual, like approaching in the individual. You talk, you know, you work with families, you talk to teams, groups of people. Tell me about that approach, talk, you know, talk, share with our listeners that whole approach for you and why did you go that route?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean in terms of I really believe in the individuality of people, situations and circumstances. I think trying to do a one-size-fits-all approach just doesn't yield the results that you know we get when we work one-on-one with people. And I think a lot of my training especially when I was doing the, the neurolinguistic programming side of my training talked a lot about people's map of the world, that we will have a very individual map of the world, that what a word means to me might have a very different meaning to you, you know. I will give you an example. There is a lot of talk in the spiritual side and well-being, spiritual well-being side of things you know meditation and all of that.
Speaker 3:About the word surrender. You know everyone's like surrender to it. You know the feminine energy surrender to it. And I have a huge amount of resistance to the word surrender. I mean an unbelievable amount, because surrender for me it's like to lose, and I grew up in an environment where losing just wasn't a thing we wanted to, you know happen, or we tried everything for it not to be an option. So the word surrender for me, you know, brings up a lot of resistance. So then for me, the word flow is a better word.
Speaker 3:And so taking this individual approach with people, allowing them to find their own language to how they want to be part of their own whether you want to call it healing journey, betterment journey, connection journey, whatever it is that they're after I think is really key to making something sustainable, because what we want when we, when we're making changes or we're creating new habits, is for them to last right.
Speaker 3:It's useless doing something that I think is right or works for me and, and you know, getting people to do it and they have no connection to it and then they just let it go. We want to create something that is good for them, so I always talk about, you know, the test kitchen. Like, what we're doing is we're testing things out, so if it doesn't work the first time, that's okay. It doesn't mean that the process isn't right, just means we have to try something different. Yes, and I think that flexibility is really key to you know, creating something that lasts, that you keep coming back to as well. What is the difference to you know, creating something that lasts, that you keep coming back to as well.
Speaker 2:What is the difference, like you've experienced, with working with the individual, or working with a family or just a team of a group of people? Talk to me through some of those experiences.
Speaker 3:You know, when it's in the individual, you're just working one-on-one and sort of you're it's a two-way thing, so there's like a bounce kind of thing. Yeah, when you're doing work with families or larger groups of people, there are so many more opinions and things you have to take into consideration and I see you smiling, so I think you have experiences of your own. Um, there is more to take into account and, um, I'm not in the business of mediation, but I'm in the business of creating space for people to feel like their voice is heard and they're being listened to and that their viewpoints are valid. So, um, you know, I have these sort of like rules or code of conduct. I prefer calling it in the kitchen, where you know we allow people to finish their sentences before, um, we jump. You know that.
Speaker 3:And the one that I really work on is to approach conversations with curiosity over judgment, and it is the biggest challenge for me as well. I'm not perfect at it. I have to challenge myself to do this every single day, because, you know, we grow up having to make judgment about everything in our lives. This is right, this is wrong. You know, there's very little gray area and how we're taught to see the world. So stopping to to practice curiosity and you know it's it's very difficult with our closest people. I'm great at practicing curiosity with my clients. I'm not so good at practicing curiosity with my you know family members, and all of that because I jump to judgment automatically. So challenging ourselves to take that step back and practice curiosity and instead of saying yes, no, asking, you know, taking that beat and then asking, okay, so what do you think made you do that? Or what do you think led you to think that way? Or, you know, to find this as a solution and exploring that side of things, I think is really, really key.
Speaker 2:You've been actually you've been leaning into this space since 2017. And one of the quotes I want to read, let me quote. Let me read it. It says cooking has continued to serve me beyond physical nourishment. I've cooked my way through some of the best and toughest times of my life and in my day to day, I cook to process emotions of my life. And in my day-to-day I cook to process emotions that resonated with me because I'm just baking through like a ton of stuff right now.
Speaker 2:So when I saw that quote, it jumped out to me and I sat back and I said like sometimes people, when we're doing this right and we're promoting the things that gives us peace and joy and this kind of work of giving back, people tend to focus more on our impact, but not so much on how it's being impacted. It's actually impacting us. So how have you grown on a personal level since you started to do this work? And tell me, is there anything that you're baking through, or have you baked through anything, and what are some of the lessons that you've learned?
Speaker 3:Wow, what a powerful question. I relate to what you said. I think I cook and bake through a lot and I think that's again it comes down. I always tell this one story that sort of stayed with me, and it was when my mom's mom passed away back in 2005. In 2005.
Speaker 3:I was 15 about that and to me the world had crashed because my grandmother, who was Joe's wife Kate, she was my safety net because, you know, she was another maternal figure, essentially my second mom, and I had never, had, never, had, you know, touched with anyone close to me passing away. And I have this core memory of after her service and after her funeral, gathering in my granddad's tiny kitchen and I mean tiny, and it was the whole family, all, all of us, eight cousins and my mom was one of seven, with their spouses, and my granddad, on the day, you know, he had to say goodbye to the love of his life, still made this big bowl of rice salad for us he's like signature rice salad and we all gathered in silence eating together and I just remember looking at the chair that she used to sit in and looking around in disbelief and then looking at my granddad and thinking, my goodness, on this day he still was nourishing us about that. That stayed with me, and so I think baking and and cooking through grief is probably one of the things I, I do a lot of. Um, not that it's just grief.
Speaker 3:I, I, you know grief comes in many different forms. It's not just the loss of people, you know. Sometimes it's loss of identity, sometimes it's, you know, exactly loss of.
Speaker 3:There's just so many different types, right um? And with healing, this is one thing that very few people talk about. With healing there is loss. You sometimes lose people who just don't align with you anymore. You sometimes lose environments that don't align with you anymore. You sometimes lose environments that don't align with you anymore.
Speaker 3:Healing is not just the great positive journey and yes, of course there is light and all of that but through it there is loss, and we have to acknowledge that. And so I think cooking and baking, through that, really processing the different elements of how to connect to my inner core, self connecting to my inner child, again coming through that element of play I think it just opens up a channel where you can connect with the inner child. You are allowed to create things where you're holding yourself, and I'm going to give you a few examples. Sometimes I bake things that are considered to be for kids, like you know, treats or little things. Or sometimes I'll put Nutella and sprinkles on toast, which you know people would be like. You know you cook a lot. Why would you choose that? The reason I choose that is because sometimes my inner child needs to feel seen and you know, it's about creating things that made me feel really loved.
Speaker 3:you know, my mom used to bake certain cakes, or my granddad used to make me this amazing egg sandwich with like cheese and ham and brown sauce, and sometimes I just want that because of the comfort and the nourishment and the feeling of being held. And I think that's the biggest lesson for me that when you cook food, you know and it's one of the reasons I insist that when I work with people, we bring in an element of their food, not my recipes there, because that's where the connection is, that's where the power is, that's where they're going to feel seen and held and heard. Um, and, and I think that is the biggest lesson and the biggest area of growth for me- Yep.
Speaker 2:This resonates in a way because food is a connection. It's a connector of people, it's a connector of families, it's a connector of communities and people always go back to food, to recenter. You know and connect. And look, you and I are connecting through food. We're building this community just through the power of food. So talk to us about what's next for Lexi and Food and being.
Speaker 3:I take this time in the year usually like around wintertime time to really regroup and look at things, and I had been spending a lot of my time doing a lot of work on social media. I wanted to get the word out there and, and I did I did get quite a lot of content out there, um up until the end of last year, and then it felt like I needed to just take a bit of a step back, and so there's a few things in the works. I've been doing some community outreach and planning on things and how I can impact my community here in Northwest London. Things are still in discussion about that, but I'm hoping that we can have a program that is aimed at battling loneliness, which is just a pandemic. That is very close to my heart. It's a pandemic in itself.
Speaker 3:I think the latest research, post-covid is, is showing that the feeling of loneliness is as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and you know we can do something about that. And food is just such a beautiful way of allowing people to share their stories and make connections. So I'm trying to, with a few organizations in my community, get a bit of an outreach program started where we can recruit some people who are experiencing this and get them together and to cook and bake together and share their stories. So that's one of the things I'm really working on and then looking at possibly getting my voice a little bit more out there. So, being part of this, obviously, and hopefully, a few more opportunities in the pipeline, some more recipe creating and publishing coming up in the next year. And, yeah, I think the most important part of it is the openness aspect of it and seeing where the opportunities are and going with the flow for them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well. I'm excited about we are going to do things together. I love the modality of your work yeah, we will.
Speaker 2:I love your missionality of your work. Yeah, we will, we definitely will. I love your mission, your vision. I love everything that you stand for and let me tell you this I've enjoyed your social media presence. It speaks authentic and true. It's fun to connect. You know, behind the screen, your your authentic and your love, your authenticity and your love for this work, shines through. So I'm really honored, really really honored, that you honored us with the gift of your time oh, my goodness, I honestly I am in awe of every cake you make I love.
Speaker 3:I am just waiting for the next post to just be in even more awe from the previous one. I think the work you do is spectacular in terms of, like, the look of it and the technique of it, and then the work you do with the Cake Therapy Foundation. I mean, that is something that is so close to my heart, like I am so here for women, for girls, for ethnic minorities who are experiencing, and not just ethnic, you know just minorities in general, and you know the work that can be done for inclusion and equalizing and opportunity creation in these areas of life.
Speaker 3:I think if only I lived closer, honestly, I would be there because I'm so passionate about that work and the more I hear about what you're doing, how you're impacting people, it just brings so much joy to me and so much admiration for you that it's just, you know, I love it, I love everything about it and I'm, if I can help and support in any way from London or you. You know, maybe one day I can even come and visit. But yeah, honestly, I think that purpose of changing the world through food and I think you are I think you're changing the world through food because every one life you're impacting, that's changing the world Right and I think it's just so honorable and beautiful and the world needs to know more about it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, lexi. So you heard her. You heard her. We had Lexi Gregg from Food and being. She's a cooking therapy coach. She joined us today. Thank you so much for being here, lexi. Thank you to our listeners for joining us on the Cake Therapy Podcast. I hope that you received a message from this conversation with Lexi today, so please don't forget to check out our website. It's wwwcake-therapyorg. Or you can buy us a coffee. Buy us a coffee. Every coffee you buy goes towards the work of changing the girl's life.
Speaker 3:so, lexi, before you go, tell our listeners where they can find you oh, so you can find me on foodandbeingcom um, there is the story, the purpose behind food and being, and there's a way to get in touch as well, and then you can also find a lot of content. Um, my stories are still very active on instagram and it's at lexi grec. Um, and, yeah, essentially I still show up. My face still is still there on my stories. Um, I will resume grid posting very soon. Um, but, yes, absolutely, I love people coming into my DMs. I love having good, meaningful conversations. I am right there, going into the deep. So find me there, let's connect, let's make some kitchen magic.
Speaker 2:I know let's make some kitchen magic. Thank you so much for listening. This has been the Cake Therapy Podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the Cake Therapy Podcast. Your support means the world to us. Let us know what you thought about today's episode in the comment section. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and if you found the conversation helpful, please share it with a friend. Also, follow Sugar Spoon Desserts on all social media platforms. We invite you to support Cake Therapy and the work we do with our foundation by clicking on the Buy Me a Coffee link in the description or by visiting the Cake Therapy website and making a donation. All your support will go towards the Cake Therapy Foundation and the work we are doing to help women and girls. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next episode.