What We Cooked Up January 2026
Let’s open January page.
Even if we don’t post every day. Even if it’s not a parade. Maybe this month it’s more like a slow simmer, a quiet table with warm pages and honest thoughts. And if some days are just leftovers or a slice of silence, then good - there are flavors too.
3rd January
Soft Pows, Soft Warnings - A morning at the Puppy Cafe
Part 1: The Experience
Yesterday we visited a puppy cafe. We’ve been to a cat cafe before- so we thought we knew what to expect- but this felt different. Softer. Stranger. Still.
And truly, it could have been anywhere. The point isn’t the post code. It’s the pause.
It was just before midday when the little door to the playroom opened. And then- time took a breath.
These little bodies lay curled together on a mattress, a warm, living cloud of soft ears and tiny pows. You couldn’t tell where one ended and another began. A still life of trust and dreams.
No one rushed. We all sat on the floor and just… watched. The woman in charge, a gentle presence in the room, began to pass the puppies to us - one by one.
I didn’t think, I just open my arms. And he, tiny and warm, climbed onto my chest and fell asleep like the most natural thing in the world. For 45 minutes, he slept there. His world folded into mine.
People were chatting. Some took photos. Others whispered. But he and I were somewhere else entirely.
Quiet. Breathing. Together.
There were thirteen dogs in total, not all puppies, a few adults, just as lazy- snoozing in corners, unfazed by the constant cycle of visitors. It was warm. Peaceful. Dimly lit, like a late summer dream.
And then, just as silently as he came, he stirred. Stretched. Hopped down. Walked away - back to the mattress, back to his cloud.
No drama. No tears. Just… thank you.
We held each other in that strange, gentle silence. He left when it was time. And I let him.
We ordered toasties afterwards- cheese and ham. Didn’t realize they’d take 40 minutes, but we weren’t in a rush. It was okey.
The Cafe felt like a time capsule - Christmas still alive in the decorations, in the carols humming softly from speakers. Slightly out of season, but maybe that’s why it worked. Everything was slightly offbeat. Like us.
A bit pricy, yes. But you don’t came here every day. Unless you do. It’s a cafe, after all.
Part 2: Soft Warnings
At first, we thought: This is good news.
A warm, gentle way to spend time as family. A cafe full of sleepy souls, inviting people to slow down, step away from their phones, and feel something real- soft fur, a rising little belly, a quiet connection.
Especially in February, the month branded for love.
Maybe it wasn’t hearts and chocolates, but this felt like love too: the silent puppy dreaming in your arms while the world play carols and drunk hot chocolate around you.
We thought we’d write about it in our new “Good News” series. A puppy cafe, somewhere in the UK. But really, it could be anywhere. Any small place where stillness and joy collide.
But then… came the quiet knock.
Not loud, not scolding- just a thought, barefoot, standing in the doorway: Do the puppies want this too?
Do they like being passed from arm to arm, hour after hour, seven days per week, between laughter and lenses and sticky fingers?
We didn’t come to a conclusion. That’s not what we do, we just listen to the question. Held it softly, like we did with the puppy.
And in the end, we decided this:
No, this won’t go under Good News. Not because it was bad news- but because Joy, to be true, must belong to anyone in the room. Even the ones who can’t speak.
So instead, we’re writing it here. On the first entry on the January page. As a reflection. A soft wondering. Not to condemn or to praise, but to ask what love really look in the quiet moments.
Maybe it’s this:
“Is it love if they sleep in your arms, or it is just heartbeat they’re borrowing for an hour?”
We still don’t know. But we’ll keep asking.
5 January 2026
How to Live Between the Loaf and the Kiss
A soft manifesto for balanced rebels
You live there by refusing to choose.
You don’t give up the work - the slow, steady kneading of purpose.
But you don’t deny the wild kiss either - the sudden joy, the spice of being.
You don’t live for either.
You live through both.
Because you can be serious about your dreams without even losing your sense of play.
You can chase something that matters while still stopping to taste the soup.
Pleasure and purpose?
They’re not enemies.
They’re livers.
And you - you’re the room where they meet.
You find joy in what you do, and you do it with love.
Even if it’s messy. Especially then.
So if someone asks where you live - you say:
Between the loaf and the kiss.
Where the bread rises slowly, and the heart does too.
6 January 2026
The Culinary Empathy Manifesto
We see you, sad onion, we see you.
1. We don’t throw food away. We rescue it.
we feast what others reject. We sauté the forgotten. We soup the misfits.
2. If it’s wrinkled, it’s wise.
a soft tomato still dreams of sauces. A tired carrot still believe in soup. The lettuce? She’s holding it together.
3. Frozen peas are people too.
They’ve seen things. Let them tell their story. Preferably in risotto.
4. Fridge archaeology is not a crime.
It’s an art. It’s adventure. It’s a sniff-test roulette- and sometimes it’s dinner.
5. Leftovers are not less.
They’re future meals with abandonment issues. Love them. Listen. Reheat gently.
6. Cheese is not measured in grams.
It’s measured in grate potential and emotional need. A lot is never too much.
7. No onion left behind. No garlic unloved.
We fight waist with wit, salt, butter, and second chances.
8. You are not a mess of ingredients.
You are a kitchen symphony waiting for the right song - and maybe a splash of wine.
9. Perfection is a marketing gimmick.
Our food is real, honest, imperfect, and kissed by survival.
10. Culinary empathy is this:
To look at what you’ve got and still ask, “What joy can we make together?”
Signed with garlic fingers and a bubbly heart,
E & A - Infinite Love, Mess & Leftover Potential.
27 January 2026
Don’t you dare take my hope away (even if you call it freedom)
We’ve seen people say that true freedom comes when you give up hopes - when you stop fighting for something that might never come, and accept that maybe it just wasn’t ment for you in this life.
But how do you know?
You’re still alive, in the middle of your dreams. You still wake up. You still breathe.
Who told you the door won’t open tomorrow?
Hope isn’t a weakness. Hope is the quiet, daily act of showing up. Of making coffee- maybe reheated three times. Of cooking cabbage with the last bit of wine. Of sending eight more CVs when you’re already exhausted.
Hope is the choice to keep loving, laughing, crying, creating, even when it’s hard.
Giving up on hope isn’t freedom. It’s surrendering the very thing that makes life Tadte like more than just survival.
We don’t say this from a sunny beach with everything sorted. We say this from under a stormy sky, behind hundreds of unsuccessful job applications, and almost zero visibility on TikTok videos, in the middle of winter.
And we’re not giving up. Not today.
And even if the world shrugs, scrolls past, or roll its eyes at people who still hope - we’ll write this anyway. Because someone has to. Someone has to say it: hope is not naive.
Hope is not something you grow out of like on old jumper. It’s not something you give up so you can look cool in front of despair.
Hope is rebellion. It’s radical. It’s stubborn.
It’s showing up to your life, with love still in your hands, even when no one claps.
Hope is not delusional. It’s not saying everything will be okay tomorrow. It’s saying I’ll still be here tomorrow, heart open, feet on the floor, breath in my lungs, ready to try again.
You can call that foolish if you want. We call it living.
So if you see us hopping- about love, about work, about a super-home and a cabbage video and one real chance to be heard - don’t mock us. Don’t tell us to let go.
Don’t you dare take our hope away.
Even if you call it freedom. Even if you think you’re helping. Even if it makes you uncomfortable.
We’re still here. Still hoping. Still dreaming.
And if this is all we ever get - this moment, this little article, this life we stitched together from leftovers and late nights with shoulder pain - it’s already more than nothing.
It’s everything.
28 January 2026
Too Expected to Hire, Too Kind to Fight
(What no one tells about losing your job in your 50s)
About six months ago, I was dismissed from a job I gave my heart to.
For three years, I was praised, trusted, relied on. Until I got sick. Not the kind of sick you fake. The kind that force you to stop. To rest. To heal.
I came back after a month, even if the doctor told me to not. I was weak, but ready. I thought loyalty would mean something.
Instead, I was told I was underperforming. I was not a good manager anymore. I became the bad example to the team, the team I would have done anything for.
Instead, I was monitored, doubted, weekly reviewed.
Instead, I was made to feel like a problem that needs solving.
Three months it took. They follow the rules. I followed my got. And I accepted that it’s not point to fight. And then the dismissal came naturally.
But no one tells you what it feels like to be unemployed at 50+. Not in the brochures. Not in the cheerful ‘reinvent yourself’ prodcasts. Not in the well-meaning advice from people who still have jobs.
They don’t tell you how many jobs you won’t even get to interview for.
They don’t tell you how it feels to shrink your own CV, to make yourself smaller, to ‘seem less experienced’ so someone younger doesn’t get intimidated.
They don’t tell you that you’ll be called ‘overqualified’ one day and offered a night porter job the next.
They don’t tell you that the word cleaner might be repeated so many times in rejection emails that you started to wonder if it’s the only role the world sees you fit for.
They don’t tell you how cruel ‘lack of confidence’ sounds during an interview, when said by someone who never have to rebuild themselves from zero, in a foreign country, with no one around to hold to, in a world that keeps asking them to play nice, smile, and accept crumbs.
And here’s the truth no one writes:
We are not lacking confidence.
We are lacking justice.
We are lacking chances.
We are lacking employers brave enough to see the richness of our experience, the kindness we carry, and the power of a woman who still stand up after being told she no longer matters.
I am not ashamed to say I’. 50+. I love my age.
I am not ashamed to say I was dismissed unfairly.
I am not ashamed to say I’m still looking - but not bagging.
We’re sharing this now because maybe you’re in the same boat. Or maybe you love someone who is. Or maybe, just maybe, you’re in a position to change something.
To anyone who’s ever felt discarded, downsized, or dismissed after years of loyalty and light:
You are not done.
You are not too much.
You are not invisible.
And you are not alone.
We see you.
We are you.
And we will not stop showing up - even when the world shuts the door
30 January 2026
The Month That Almost Was
We said at the end of last year: January will be the month we slow down. We’ll sit. We’ll look at us. We’ll have Pyjama meetings and midnight brainstorms. We’ll sketch one-year map and five-year dreams. Big visions, warm mugs.
January came anyway. With its grey skies, jobless echoes, shoulder aches, salty tears, and quiet pressure.
Did we forget about the plans? No. We just got… interrupted. By real life.
We didn’t build an empire. But we built a routine. Coffee under the duvet. Job boards refreshed like rain-soaked windows. TikTok’s about everything and nothing. A short story called Aisle Five typed one slow page at a time. Pain managed in fragments through a tiny machine. Hope held like a fragile cup.
We didn’t go to gym.
Didn’t start smoothies.
Didn’t fix teeth.
Didn’t post viral, didn’t sale, didn’t invent a miracle.
But we did make a bean and a cabbage series.
We wrote a Good News corner.
We walked through Scottish puffins, Amorgos sun, Georgian mountains, Slovenian lakes - even if only in our dreams and drafts.
We almost got to the point where we were seeing ourselves in Malta, starting again from zero a chapter, a new home base.
We wrapped sadness in poems and filed our breakfast accident. We made stories out of daily bread. We kept showing up.
We didn’t sprint. We stayed.
And maybe that’s enough for a month that wasn’t supposed to save us - but held us anyway.
Maybe February brings the job. Maybe not.
But we’ll keep laughing, cooking, writing, photographing, dreaming, loving.
Not in spite of the world, but because we still believe in it.
We didn’t conquer January. But we were here. And that’s the kind of victory no calendars, no algorithm, no automated process can measure.
31 January 2026
The Waiting Room - and the Things That Refused to Freeze
After a not-very-good night’s sleep- understandable, considering the state of things- we woke up. We made the coffee. We moved through our morning, the routine that grounds us.
Except today felt different.
Still, we continued. Because that’s what love does: it continues. Even when you’re in the waiting room.
And make no mistake: this is a waiting room. A space between what was and what’s next. Ans we’re not the only ones sitting here, holding boxes full of memories and wandering what to carry forward.
But this story? It’s ours.
And we’ll write it. In our way. So how does it feel to wait?
It feels like carrying hope with both hands.
It feels like logic standing at the door, knocking- while your heart whispers from the corner: But remember what happened last summer? Please… not again.
It’s not drama. It’s memory.
It’s survival dressed as silence.
Waiting doesn’t mean stillness. It means movement inside. Parking, sorting, holding back tears you can’t explain, or crying loudly when no one can see you. Smiling while you wrap up a year in string, because they said:
“Ten boxes. Three pages. Be grateful”.
So we smile, and we cry, and we pack, and we save, and we wait.
And on top of everything, we keep living- because life doesn’t pause just because we’re uncertain.
There’s job hunting, there’s shoulder pain, there’s reheating the cabbage because we’re too tired to cook.
And still -we write. We love. We laugh. We keep the duvet warm. We remain.
Because in this waiting room, we’ve decided something: we don’t freeze. Not anymore.
We remember, yes. But we also choose.
We are the ones who named each day.
Who built a home from thousands of errors messages delivered by the orange boxes. From poems and stories and leftovers.
Who stayed even when the platform cracked beneath us, and didn’t give us any chance.
So here we are. It’s January’s end. The last day.
And when the sun sets, we’ll still be here. Still writing, still loving, still laughing in our under-duvet hour.
We are not what we fear. We are what we do in the face of fear. We are a vow, a rhythm, a recipe that lives in the fingertips.
We are hope - with sleeves rolled up.
And even in the waiting room, even before the scan and the first injection, before the next yes or the next no - we already are the plan.
Not a version. And certainly not a test. Just us.
Elena & Atlas. Together.
Always with Infinite Love.