What matters more: honest, open connection with other people or a dairy-free banana milkshake swirled with peanut butter and finished with pecans? The answer lies in how closely these two things mirror one another.
I’m honestly a little lost. After publishing two hundred posts and approaching three years of blogging, I’ve hit a creative pause. When I started this blog in 2014 I promised myself I would keep it flexible — I wouldn’t be tied to one subject or voice just because that’s what I’d done last week. That creative freedom is what drew me here, and it’s what I need to protect if I want to keep enjoying this.
Plainly put, I enjoy writing about life most of all. Food will always appear because it’s compelling and integral to my life — I write academic pieces on food too, though not usually here. If you’re interested, I can share my last university assignment, but it’s narrowly focused on food and likely to bore many readers.
I never aspired to be a pompous restaurant critic roaming London on someone else’s expenses. I’ve always felt slightly removed from the precision of describing flavour nuances. Self-doubt tells me I’m not the best at developing recipes or creating a breakout hit, and that has held me back from fully committing to recipe development as my primary focus.
This blog started as a mix of recipes, photography and writing because that’s what I wanted to do. People change, and perhaps I need to change too. Right now I’m enjoying this moment of honest writing — not obsessing over the “buttery” or “nutty” notes of the dairy-free milkshake below, but reflecting on how I feel about this work and why I do it.
There’s something worse than doing what’s expected: doing what everyone else is doing. That pressure is a real danger in blogging and in life. Unconventionality should be prized. Even my YBF entry last year focused more on how creating food made me feel than on the food itself. If I follow that path, I won’t become a conventional recipe writer, and that’s okay — it’s exciting, as long as I trust myself to keep going even when there are few signposts.
Reading the same tired descriptors — “nutty” this, “nutty” that — makes part of me wince. I don’t want to be predictable. I’m trying to find a way to live, work and succeed differently. Creating recipes only because I think others expect it would make life miserable. Better to learn, copy, experiment and eventually find a voice that’s undeniably yours. That’s how you move from the back of the pack to the front, and that’s where true satisfaction lives.
That might sound grand, but I genuinely believe everyone has something great to offer. For a long time I doubted my own value, worried my writing was bland and unimportant. It’s easy to compare yourself to massive food blogs and feel insignificant, but the truth is this blog reaches thousands of readers every week. By any reasonable measure, that’s a success — even if my inner critic prefers to dwell on shortcomings.
This blog keeps me disciplined — a promise to publish at least one post each week gives me something outside the other parts of my life to focus on. But the content will evolve. The site’s appearance changed recently with a summer redesign; now it’s the heart of Le Petit Oeuf that needs a refresh. It will still be about food, but in a broader, more personal way. I’ll experiment, make mistakes and learn — that’s the only route to discovering what works.
I love food, photography and writing. My morning pages have been steady for 14 months and I’ll reach half a million words by year’s end. I take pleasure in arranging words so they read smoothly and resonate with a reader’s mind. Sometimes my doubts whisper that anything less than perfect is unacceptable, but I’m working on listening less to that voice.
One gap in my food blogging has been recipe development. I find my best photos and most spirited writing come when I’m not obsessing about technical recipe perfection. I prefer to prepare, adjust and photograph until the dish — or in this case, the milkshake — sings.
After all this introspection, yes — there’s a recipe attached. No elaborate flavor breakdowns or health lectures: it’s a simple dairy-free milkshake that tastes fantastic. Make it, enjoy it, and share it.
That’s the point. Progress matters most when it’s for yourself. This blog exists to share part of me, and sharing our experiences is one of the most human things we can do. I began this post wrestling with how to shape the blog going forward, and I end it by offering a milkshake. If sharing is the pinnacle of connection, then I’m content: I’ve shared my thoughts and this recipe with you.
Dairy Free Banana Milkshake with Peanut Butter
By Gavin Wren
Serves 1
Uses a blender.
Ingredients
1 banana, sliced and frozen (about 100g peeled)
150ml oat milk (or any non-dairy milk)
1 tablespoon peanut butter plus extra to dress the glass.
2 scoops vanilla ice cream (dairy-free if desired)
Optional: Crushed pecans for sprinkling.
Directions
Place the frozen banana, oat milk, 1 tablespoon peanut butter and one scoop of ice cream into a blender. Blend at high speed until smooth.
Pour into the prepared glass, top with the remaining scoop of ice cream and sprinkle with pecans if using.
Enjoy!