Welcome!

To the Thistle and Whey Dispatch, a newsletter about food and cooking, my love of living seasonally, motherhood, and… other things I decide I might like to write about/think you might like to read about.

I’m Jordan. Some of my favourite things to talk about include all of the above, and I am very excited to have a dedicated place to explore and share them with you. A bit about me, if we haven’t met before:

I have spent my entire working life in some form of hospitality, my favourite stint of which was training as a pastry chef at a chocolate shop/cafe and being head salad and muffin creator at a Sydney cafe. When my first daughter turned one I started a beautiful little business (Thistle and Whey) creating completely bespoke celebration and wedding cakes using the absolute best local and seasonal produce I could, and doing occasional markets. When covid hit, it all slowed down a lot, and I realised that although I really loved creating beautiful cakes for life’s celebrations, the business model didn’t align with what I needed it to be.

I have been writing online for over a decade (I started publishing my first “blog” when I was living in Canada age 19- a travelogue of my adventures, of sorts), and, in different forms, it has been a constant creative outlet ever since. I am so happy to have you here, at the current incarnation of my writing habit!

When I started this newsletter, I planned to write about food, sustainable and seasonal cooking, and food justice. These are all threads that you will find throughout my writing, as I love eating, cooking, and discussing food. But giving myself boundaries within which to write started to feel stifling… and kind of boring. So I’m thinking of Thistle and Whey Dispatch now as a letter to a friend. I will write frequently, with news, stories, thoughts… things I think you’d like.

I do believe everyone can cook good food without a recipe, and that it has less to do with natural skill/where you shop/what ingredients you use than it does with curiosity and LOTS of practice (so, like pretty much everything else), so I will share “no-recipe” recipes- my favourite way to cook, and other less-formal-than-traditional-recipe ideas for what to do with certain foods or ways I have been eating lately. I believe knowing how to cook a nourishing, tasty meal for yourself or your loved ones is seriously empowering- and I don’t think it should be a skill reserved for those who have endless time, money, or other resources.

I am excited to be here and it is a really special feeling to be welcomed into your inbox, which I am one hundred percent sure is already completely full! But really, I am so grateful for everyone who reads and subscribes to this letter- it is a great joy to be in such a chatty, communal space where we can share our thoughts, ideas and knowledge about food and eating.

(In case you are curious: I currently offer free and paid subscriptions for my weekly(ish) newsletter. At the moment, both recieve the same newsletter when it goes out. I decided to set up the paid option to give people the opportunity to make financial contributions if they felt called to. The newsletter will always be free, but in the future I may add other features for paying subscribers.)

So welcome! It is wonderful to have you here.

A few more notes about my intentions with these letters:

I am taking a cue from an artist I admire and giving myself the grace to aim for weekly letters and know that sometimes that won’t happen. Sometimes I won’t want that happen- I’m planning to write regularly but I don’t want to force myself to write when I have nothing to say. And I will take short breaks throughout the year. I will write and let you know when these breaks will be but I will always be away for all of March and all of December.

I can’t force myself into a box or a schedule. It doesn’t work for me. And I feel very grateful that I have the opportunity to call in people who understand the way my brain works and know that a financial contribution isn’t an 1 for 1 exchange so much as a concrete declaration of support for and belief in my work.

Jordan. Xx

(PS any images you see on Thistle and Whey Dispatch are taken by me, unless noted otherwise.)