The beginning: perfectly imperfect
Today is the day I have actively avoided since conceiving of Miss Cook & Co. I realise how ridiculous that sounds when you say it out loud. Seriously? Avoiding something you have long wished for, talked about endlessly to everyone you know, and want really badly? Uh what?
It is for this (and so many other) reasons, that it has to be this moment. Now. Today is the day I admit to myself, and declare to you, that this “version” of www.misscookandco.com is so exceedingly far from the perfect creature I willed it to be at the beginning, that it’s funny. Not as much “funny haha”, more “funny train wreck”, but funny nonetheless.
However, what is different about today, is that today I stopped accepting “it’s not perfect” as a valid reason for complete and utter inaction on my part. For failure to launch. In reality, this moment now, there is absolutely no acceptable excuse for hiding my true self, my gift and my inspiration from the world, from becoming something incredible, the stuff of my dreams, especially good old fashioned fear of failure. So here I am: perfectly imperfect. And today, rather than stand and peer over the edge, wondering what is below, I am simply going to fling myself off that cliff, after casually saying “fuck it”. Because that’s what Miss Cook would do.
I should say now, early in the piece, in the event you don’t like profanity, you may wish to stop reading here, because Miss Cook curses with gay abandon and reasonable regularity. She says fuck. A lot. In the interests of full and frank disclosure, she, in fact, will probably do a lot of things that may make your hair stand on end. Or want to high five her. Or both. I don’t need to tell you though, you will come to see that pretty quickly for yourself, and hopefully you will love her because of it/in spite of it. Either is an option.
So here we are, let’s not keep you waiting any longer. Miss Cook has finally arrived, so let me introduce you to her so you can get to know her better. All of her. She won’t be hiding anything from you, what you get is what you see. So, even though it won’t always be pretty or perfect, you can at least be sure that it will be real, authentic and genuine. So let’s get to it.
Miss Cook is a lover of all things good in life. All the things. She loves everything about food and is an enthusiastic eater. She mostly lives out of a suitcase, does not have a “home” to speak of, or even a home city. She truly believes that home is where her heart is, and therefore her home is everywhere. The world is her playground, her office and her muse. She follows her dreams wherever they may take her, she is forever on the grandest of grand treasure hunts rummaging her way around the world for the best of everything, the most extraordinary and exquisite things life has to offer. She is fantastically unusual, not the kind of girl to be squeezed into a box made for the mundane, but by the same token, she is not so terminally unique as to have a stick up her ass about what a “special snowflake” she is. Because let’s be honest, no one likes a stick up the ass. Well, almost no one.
Miss Cook craves for, collects and curates experiences beyond the normal, things that are hard fought, not easily won or readily stumbled upon. Things to bring to you, in her bare hands, that she can share with you, that you can delight in together. She is a voracious foodie, fantastic fun, an inspiring human being, a bon vivant with a dash of wild child renegade. She lives and breathes community: building them from scratch is her forte, it gives her a zest for life that she can’t find elsewhere. Miss Cook is a connector, a conduit to incredible things, places and people, and is concerned to consciously create a space where you want to come to be inspired, feel good, and most importantly to feel like you belong. She wants you to be with her on her adventures, in a way that is transportable to anywhere, knowing, as she does, that this place we create here together is our home.
For such a long time, Miss Cook was all in my head. The creation of the brand that will stand as me, my voice in the world, was 100% something “in progress” (being code for NOT actually being anything at all), when in truth really nothing was happening, other than gold star, grade A procrastination. Unreserved analysis paralysis. Well, those days are over now.
Miss Cook is now the proverbial genie out of the bottle. There is no going back now. She is me and I am her, inescapably, but she is also so much more. I want her to be the me I would not always show you, the one that takes ages to get to know, because I can’t always just “speak my truth”. Sometimes it takes a while, or doesn’t happen at all, because Angie/Cookie/Angela, the person behind Miss Cook, she is human. She is fragile, and not forever fearless. Miss Cook, on the other hand, she is bold and brave, you want to know her, follow her around, be in her wonderful whirlwind wake, have her fix her sparkling knowing eyes on you, throw some of her “magic dust” your way.
Miss Cook will inspire you in so many ways if you let her. Whether she is the reason for you to take that trip that that far flung place you have wanted to go to since you were young, run off to the jungles of Bali or the beaches of Mexico and do that spiritual woo woo you secretly yearn to do, or more simply the reason to trundle off to a market in search the finest spring truffles and Pecorino perfection, it doesn’t matter. She was created to inspire, to make you fall in love with your life, what it is, and what it can be. Truthfully, I am in awe of her. I only hope you come to love her as much as I do. Miss Cook plans to make her mark. Take my hand, and come with us, it’s going to be the most extraordinary ride.
Love,
Miss Cook xoxo