honestly? 2025 is kind of intense

A personal update

Hello again, dear readers! It’s been some months since I last wrote. Thanks for your patience and for staying subscribed to Hungry with Ideas while I’ve been gone. Today’s newsletter is a bit more personal and much less food-focused than you’re used to, but I wanted to be honest about where I’ve been so here goes…

Tasmania, Australia, 2023

Have you ever experienced a moment where life forces you to reset? It’s as if you were speeding along until all of a sudden the sign reads, “HIGHWAY ENDS.” That’s been 2025 for me, both personally and professionally.

In December, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Jenna. She is the absolute joy of my life and every day I get to watch her grow feels like an achievement in and of itself.

Becoming a parent changes you in ways you don’t expect. Everyone talks about the sleepless nights and the incessant crying, but those moments pass. People talk less about the emotional side of things.

My first thought when the nurses put the baby on my chest was that I finally understood my own mother – the sacrifices she made, and the reasons why, even though I’m almost 30, she still calls me almost every day to ask if I’ve eaten dinner or if I’ve gotten over my cold. As a child, you love your mother, but you can never understand the type of love your mother feels for you until you have a child of your own.

Since becoming a parent, I’ve also started to feel a much more profound sadness for the suffering of children around the world. That’s not to say I was cold or callous before, but when I hold my baby in my arms, as adorable as she is, I realize that every baby on earth coos and smiles and grasps and giggles the same way she does. She is not more innocent than the rest, she just happened to win the lottery of being born in a stable country to two parents who love her dearly.

And yet, as lucky as she is, I still worry about her future. The world today feels darker than it did two years ago when I was backpacking through Asia, eating Thai roti and Korean street food without a care in the world. Then again, there are people backpacking Asia right now who are having the time of their lives, so maybe I’m the one who has changed. The stakes feel higher now, and I understand why when I was a kid I thought all adults were sad.

Regarding this newsletter, it would be easy to tell you that after giving birth I simply didn’t have time to write, but that’s not true. I’ve made time to see friends and go on walks and try new hobbies like stand-up comedy.

Sicily, 2022

The truth is, I didn’t write because I couldn’t motivate myself to post happy-go-lucky food stories when the world seems headed towards impending disaster. Who cares about the difference between the waffles from Brussels and Liege when so many people are starving and authoritarianism is at our doorstep?

Meanwhile, the algorithms are pushing us towards light content that lets us ignore the painful reality of the news cycle and big publishers are taking the bait. Thank God for the journalists risking their safety to bring us the truth, but their work is being buried in the deluge of cucumber salad recipes and features columns about whether its acceptable to wear sweatpants on a flight.

To be clear, I don’t fault the creators and writers who are paying their bills with this type of content. I, too, had a job selling a service through content creation. I didn’t tell my employer I was pregnant for fear of losing the gig. Ironically, they let me go a few weeks before giving birth. They didn’t tell me why, but I later discovered they replaced me with a combination of AI and students paid pennies to make content out of their dorm rooms.

I’m fed up with a global economic system that’s making it increasingly harder for people to find meaningful work that pays a fair wage, no matter their skills or level of education. I see my friends with full-time jobs struggle to pay rent, meanwhile, corporations hoard millions in bank accounts – money that currently amounts to almost meaningless 1s and 0s but could make a difference in the lives of real people if only a select few weren’t so greedy.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with a food newsletter. Maybe not much, but I couldn’t bear to write about food as if nothing’s wrong. I’m tired of hiding behind a veneer of positivity.

This newsletter might have a slightly different tone from now on – or maybe not! I’m not promising anything, not even regularity. But I’m not going to stop writing, because no matter the world outside our window, we all deserve the ability to express ourselves, to create, to sing, to laugh, to share with others. I’m not going to let events out of my control keep me from that, even as I’m mindful of the fact that my writing isn’t changing reality.

At the end of a newsletter, I have a tendency to wrap things into a positive little package with a bow of hopefulness slapped on top. I’m not going to do that today. I’m only here to let you know that I’m ready to come back to writing about food and travel and the things I love.

I’ll see you soon.

– Anna

Poland, 2024