A Couple of weeks ago I was invited to speak at Stockholm Food Movement. I talked about my mission, that is to share my passion for regional delicacies as well as food and beverages that are made with sustainable loving care. And I also told the audience all about Stellagalan.
You could easily say that I´ve had a long and loving affair with gastronomy. I started to cook quite early since both my mum and dad worked full time and came home late. But luckily both of them were interested in food and always tried to make every meal – workdays as well as celebration – as pleasant and tasteful as they could. I think that is one of the reasons for my interest in food and wine. The other, is a completely different story. Many chefs talk about their grannies, and how they spent time together, how they learnt their secrets and became masters of the skills in the kitchen. My granny gave me a totally different vision! She did things her own way, always wore lots of jewelry that tingled, a very bright red lipstick and her favorite food was strawberries, red wine and dark chocolate. So my parents taught me that food and drinks are valuable sources of pleasure, and granny topped that with a bit of glamour. Based on that I have made my own codex that I try to follow.
I truly believe that love, sustainability, consciousness, equality and knowledge is the ultimate peacemaker. And if everybody should follow those key values we would probably have peace all over the world and I would´t have had to start Stellagalan. Stellagalan is a non-profit organisation that me and some women started a couple of years ago. It was a reaction to the lack of woman – in our business – that got space in media, jurys and prize galas. But instead of whining about the impropriety we did something about it. With the help of our brave and committed sponsors we have been able to do exactly what we wanted. We started working and in january 2018 we had our very first gala. Ever since then we have prized women of the gastronomi in the 9 different categories. At the very first gala we wanted to make a statement so there were only women invited.
At the second gala we also wanted to enchance the power and added some credibility and facts to the glitter. So to the as well as the price gala we added a forum. The invited panel discussed equality at large and then especially the problems we have in our trade. But we also diskussed the fact that women rarely compete and why that is.
Our third gala is soon approaching and we will of course celebrate the nine winners with the usual glitter, glamour and party. But this time we have looked outside our own trade to compare. We have invited ”Byggnads” the trade union for builders are joining us, to give their view of equality and tell us how they work to make the world a better and more equal place.
So if you want to sort of brake down the the ingredients of my vision to a recipe I would say that the essence would be – despite being the spokesperson of Stellagalan – Don’t bother about gender… but even more don´t bother about race, age, level of education, religion, political opinion or occupation. instead brake bred with your fellow human, make peace, be curious and don´t ever speak with hate in your mouth
