Hi I’m Gigi, creator of Ohpuree. So you want to know about us, eh? Well I hope you're sitting comfortably with a good snack to hand as it’s kind of a long story...

"Oh purée" is an innocent French exclamation replacing swear words like "oh merde". I suppose it's a bit like saying "oh sugar" instead of "oh shit".

So, although it sounds romantic and whimsical, the title of my blog is essentially "oh crap".

Now why could that be, I hear you ask? Well, the short answer is sometimes in life things happen. Bad things or hard things. This blog was born out of an unfortunate event, when I definitely exclaimed "oh crap" more than once. But the story has a happy ending. Learning to cook was the silver lining that came into my life totally unexpectedly.

You could say I turned an "oh purée" moment into an "Oh. Purée?" discovery.

I was 18 years old and in my final year of school. It was a Monday morning following a weekend visit to my boyfriend at Nottingham University. I woke up feeling strange, and soon realised I was coming down with a fever so I emailed the school to tell them I wasn’t coming in. And that really was the start of everything.

I didn’t manage to go to school the next day. Nor the day after that. When a week and a half had passed and I still had a pounding headache, light sensitivity and the dynamism of a beached whale it was clear that whatever was making me sick was not a run of the mill virus. 

Weeks in bed turned to months and the diagnosis of viral meningitis hung over me like a dark cloud that didn’t show any signs of dissipating. Although I had only suffered a high temperature for around a week, the damage that the virus did to my body was predicted to take between 1 to 5 years to repair. My friends hurtled towards final exams, University-bound, and I could barely hold a conversation with another person without feeling totally exhausted. My friends visited when they could and my family did everything they could to keep up my morale. But to all intents and purposes I was a vegetable. 

It was during those bedbound days that I began to appreciate the possibility of never regaining my physical and mental strength. Never doing my A levels and never going to University. Never knowing where I could have got to in the world of work and beyond. It was a tough pill to swallow, not knowing how full my recovery would be, and how long it could take to get to a place where I could resume my studies. I was weak and couldn’t engage with anything for more than a few minutes without needing to rest. I would turn on the television but after a few weeks of daytime TV I found that watching useless crap all day made me feel even more like, well, useless crap who was going nowhere anytime soon. 

While my friends were at school broadening their horizons and expanding their minds by the day, I felt like my world was getting smaller and smaller. I felt very isolated and at times depressed. That was until I realised that while watching cooking shows on TV I didn’t notice my pain as much, and I didn’t feel time creep by as slowly. I noticed that I was engaged and absorbing information “one egg, 50g flour” in a way I hadn’t managed to since I contracted the virus. The cooking programmes took me around the world, showed me new places, ingredients and cooking techniques. From that point on the food channel was my school, and every day I managed to focus for a little longer on what was being prepared on screen. Each day I challenged myself to recall more and more of the ingredients, and more and more details of how to prepare the recipes. After around 8 months of this self-imposed cognitive therapy, I was able to hold a coherent conversation for an hour or so, and to process more complex information. My head was less foggy and I was more alert.

It was at this time that I ventured out of my bed and into the kitchen. Everyday I would go downstairs at least once to prepare something to eat or drink. I was so curious to try out some of the recipes and techniques I had seen on the cooking channel (often on a repeating schedule!). I challenged myself to make basic preparations, and found that every day I was able to spend longer and longer in the kitchen, and less and less time in bed. 

When friends were due to visit I would attempt to make a cake, or some kind of tea-time treat for them, and soon fell in love with cooking. I loved how cooking empowered me. That I could be useful, and put my limited energies into making something tangible that I could feel proud of. I loved how my family and friends relished my creations, and polished off even the not-so-successful attempts with gratitude. After a long time of having things done for me, it was an amazing feeling to be able to do something for them.

After around a year and a half I was almost back to full health. Not yet up to parties or team sports, but able to function quite well provided I had enough sleep. I went to a college to do my A levels, and got the results I needed to read Law and Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political science.

By the time the University start date rolled around I was feeling strong and ready to meet the challenge. I remained in London so I could continue to be treated by the same Consultant Neurologist and so I had family nearby if things took a turn for the worst. During those years at Uni in London I continued to cook and bake and build on my culinary knowledge. I set up a small business called 'Cakes by Georgina', and made celebration cakes and other pastries to order. Not only had cooking given me back my health, but starting my cake business gave me my first sense of financial independence. It was my first side hustle and I continued it as long as I could, even through Law School (studying the LPC). 

Fast forward a year or so, and I quit my job at an investment bank and moved to Rome, Italy on a whim. I didn’t know a soul, nor did I have a job, and I started writing a blog and uploading photos as a way to document my experience and stay connected to family and friends. As I began to build my life in Italy I continued to write 'ohpuree' in order to capture the city and my memories of it, to revisit later. A month in I accepted a full time legal internship at the United Nations World Food Programme legal office in Rome, where I learned so much, and met some of my closest friends of all time.

The food in Italy captured my heart, and in those six months I learned as much as I could about the famous cuisine. After 6 pasta-fuelled months in Rome I had hatched a new plot. I had accepted a training contract to be a lawyer at a London law firm, but still had a year before it started. I decided to return to London and study for the Grande Diplome at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School in Bloomsbury. There, I not only qualified as a professional chef, but also had some of the happiest times of my life. My time in Rome and at Le Cordon Bleu are documented in the earlier journals of this blog, so if you're curious about those experiences all is revealed there. 

Nowadays I'm working a demanding job as a lawyer, and using this blog to share my passion for the culinary arts with those around me. Cooking really saved me during some difficult times and I firmly believe there are so many benefits of this hobby. There are a million reasons to get into cooking! Cooking to relieve stress, cooking to nourish your body more beneficially, cooking to enjoy life by eating something utterly delicious, or to celebrate a special moment. Cooking to explore and understand other cultures and societies. Cooking to take care of others and show them they are loved. 

The purpose of this blog these days is to make this beautiful and uniting activity accessible and easy for everyone. Everyone can cook wonderful things. All it takes are some good resources and an enthusiasm to learn. So, I happily give you the resources! I share everything I know about the world of food and continue my culinary journey here for you all to see. I suppose you could say I spent my life savings and a year at Culinary School so you don’t have to...

Got the enthusiasm to become a great cook? Well, it looks like we have a deal!  But just one more thing...

I want to hear from you! 

Write me a message just to let me know you are there, or ask me any culinary question! Like, comment and share my posts and videos on social media and spread the good food vibes around! 

Show this blog some love and I promise it will continue to show some back. :) 

Hope to hear from you soon,

Gigi 

Instagram: @gggsarah

Xxx