Your Happy Hour - Potluck Style

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Welcome back to Your Happy Hour with Friday Feels!This week we had the immense pleasure of inviting an unexpected guest - public/private partnership consultant, photographer and a wonderful mother, Anita Botha - to chat to us about her solo and work-travel experiences that have often taken the form of Potluck Style gatherings which fostered cross-cultural community-building and made for some great laughs! How does cuisine play a role in how you build your tribe and share in vibes in your daily travels?Friday Feels is all about having those honest conversations, the power of community for personal growth and taking those actionable steps towards being our authentic selves.Thanks for tuning in! Keep it raw and real out there xYHH is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

It's the Friday feels and we're back with your first sip of the weekend. You're now tuned in to this week's episode of Your Happy Hour. I'm your host Nicole Carmine and it's amazing to have you here joining me this week as we uncover the truths about being a human and a working professional. What are you up to this Friday? Well whatever it is, this moment is just for you. Welcome back to another episode of Your Happy Hour and it's the second episode of our theme Traveling Tribe Vibes.

Our initial guest this week unfortunately had to postpone and so for those who were wondering what on earth happened to you, your feels, your dose of happy hour this Friday, well when you're a traveler you know that plans change. And so we turn to our tribe to help us find the vibes again. So I turned to my tribe, ChatGPT. No, I'm just kidding. But I did ask ChatGPT about traveling tribe vibes and we'll get into that a little bit now.

But I did turn to my very first and probably my favorite traveling tribe vibe. Well, one of the members of the traveling tribe vibe, my mom, my darling mom Anita Buita, who has had very interesting travels and who along with my dad has really taught me a lot about finding tribe, about travel, and about sharing the vibes out there.

So today we're going to chat about a topic which I'm calling potluck style. Now for those of you who don't know what a potluck is, potluck is really about sharing food. Everyone brings small plates, it's a gathering, it's a bring and share and in French we'll say partagez, to share and to really find community and find tribe through cuisine. So we chatted about nature-connected community last week and we've got a little bit more to come around home-connected community and working connected community on this topic. But today I thought let's unpack a little bit about culture and one of the big things about culture I think is language but also food and cuisine.

So a lot of us come together as tribes around food and we travel, we go find restaurants that we like. So food is really a big part of travel. And yeah, so a very big welcome to Anita Wurte, who is actually working as a... Well, you can tell us a little bit more about what you do, but a very interesting, has a very interesting job as a consultant working between private and public partnerships. Definitely a lot of tribes involved there, especially in South Africa.

It's really truly an honor for me to have you on the podcast and to share a little bit about our stories. I also want to mention that my mom's a very beautiful singer, which she shares with me as well, and a photographer, which she has yet to share with the world, but there's a lot of travel stories to unpack in her photography. So hopefully we'll see a lot of that soon, but a very big welcome to your happy hour this Friday. Thank you Nicole, it's lovely to be here. I mean I'm seriously privileged to have my daughter on the other side of the camera. Yeah, it's lovely.

It's awesome to be with you. Thank you for joining me and on short notice, it's nice. And I want to know a little bit about what you think of the idea of potluck. So that's something as an Afrikaans community we've done a lot of. Everyone brings a dish and share. But is that something that was traditional for you when you were growing up? And what does potluck style mean in travel for you? Potluck style in travel and traditional, you know, it's interesting the way we I grew up is in a large family, and so we had many of these, how can I say, family

feasts where everybody brings. I think it's quite something in probably all cultures really, that people bring stuff and then they have these big family dinners and and and and lunches and all that kind of stuff and probably sometimes picnic style. I have to say that I come from a family that we cook for an army you know so we're I do know I do know. I know food, I mean it's like droopy, you know. But potluck for me also means various other things because I've had the privilege of sometimes sharing a meal with people that I do not know from any place and you throw them together and in a kitchen

somewhere and with my travels so to speak and then and you and you just put everything together and those I think is the special ones those special ones and often it's in a situation where you don't have much so you make do with whatever everyone can bring to the table you know or the kitchen whatever you want to call it so. So tell us a little bit about those travels I mean I know that when I was young we traveled a lot together as a family. A big part of those travels were very much about unplanned, unexpected and so we were together as a little tribe kind of trying to find our vibes out in the world and obviously as I grew up I went on solo travels you know dad traveled a lot too for business and you went on some interesting solo travels. Well, you incorporated us in them,

but one of the big ones that stand out for me is the Camino. You walked a Camino of a thousand kilometers, which is just utterly incredible but crazy. Dad walked the first 200 with you. I was privileged enough to walk the last 100, 113 with you all the way to Santiago. And you walked about 700 on your own. And that is, I'm sure you shared a lot of interesting cuisine

with people in that time. I know we did when I was there. And it was in Spain. So I guess the tapas style that, you know, that kind of sharing of food and finding your vibes and tribes out there. But yeah, how was that for you? Gosh, you know, if you open the topic of the Camino for me, I can keep you busy for a very long time. It was very interesting.

When you walk a Camino, interesting, when you walk a Camino, the way that I sort of approached it was that whatever's going to come my way is going to come my way. That's just the way it sort of goes and it is the way, the Camino means the way. So all of these things sort of intertwine, you know. I often found myself in a situation. So as you walk, you get to the place where you're going to overnight. And there's these albergues where you sort of sleep over. By just a few euro. And it's like a shared kitchen and you know it's like it

was funny like just to give you a sense of what it what it's like is I would as a woman for instance sometimes share like a dormitory kind of situation with with men women from all over the world. And those people are then thrown together in a kitchen. Sometimes you would have hosts who makes a meal and then you just around the table together. Otherwise you're in this kitchen together and you just share whatever you have. Or otherwise you would go to a cafe or something and then you would you would eat whatever they've got and then the vino tinto is always just very much a part of it you know because I mean in Spain they say a meal without wine is a meal wasted so that was also part of that but it's about the food is

the Camino is the combining factor that's the common denominator and then being thrown together in around cuisine is the other because this is where you need to get together. You can walk the road alone the whole day, but in the evening you sleep in the same place. And what you share is that food, is that cuisine, is that preparation, and the laughter, and the enjoyment of knowing that everyone is there for similar reasons, you know, often it's spiritual. At least the Camino that I walked was not the more popular one who became a bit touristy. This was really not the easiest one. There weren't all these very many guidebooks also at the time. So it most definitely sort of brought people together around that shared sort of experience.

You know, yeah, it was lovely. You know, there was a lot of stuff going on there. I remember the one time we were in such a shared situation and it was actually me and mostly me actually, with me in this albergue and the municipal official, it belonged to their local government, their municipality, and he came around and he had some sort of liquor that he was wanting everybody to share with. And some of the men looked out for me and they said to me, you're not, you can't drink that. And, and I had a smell and, and, you know, in South Africa, we talked about Mambour and

you know Mambour is like 40% alcohol. So they immediately looked out for me and said, this is not gonna be part of the meal, not at least not for you. And that I so much appreciated because, you know, those kind of things also come up. And then it's just those shared moments around that. It's just those shared moments around that. I don't know if that answers all your questions.

Yeah, 100%. I think it's funny when you're traveling, the one thing that's quite a constant about traveling is that you still have to eat. The basic thing about being human is that you're still going to go find something to eat. And so whether you're traveling and you find it in the local grocer or you like you say on a Camino and you're sharing the meals or you're going to look for the cool spots in the restaurants that are part of that culture, it's the basic travel experience, I think. But then when you think of travelling tribes and vibes like you experience on the Camino,

that's when it becomes quite special when you are able to feel the culture through that experience of a tribe. And sometimes like with the Camino with you those tribes are formed on the way and and those deep connections even though they might be fleeting I think that's the beauty about travel and often cuisine does that cuisine food really gives you that opportunity and sometimes the alcohol does help a little bit I think for people to open up and share those moments quite deeply but instantly, share those stories.

So I think that's really beautiful. And I mean, I obviously experienced a little bit of that with you. So it's a really special, for whoever out there is thinking about doing a Camino, I can highly recommend the journey, the pilgrimage. But then just to kind of think about that a little bit further, in terms of traveling, tribe vibes

and your journey, how do you feel you as a working professional, I know you've traveled a lot, as a municipal consultant and you've obviously finding, you're working with different tribes in South Africa in a way through your work. Have you found that through your travels for work, you've been connected with community through cuisine wherever you've gone and various, in South Africa also, in other countries like Zimbabwe and Botswana, those places where I've also worked, most definitely because if you look at the traditional way of living, especially in South Africa, because I have traveled and worked also in

rural areas. Gathering around the food pots, it's quite a to be in a professional set up together and you are doing a whole lot of workshops and stuff like that, but the real connection happens around the foot, happens around the table, happens when everybody starts to relax and everybody starts to share their stories. It's so interesting for me, especially as a working professional, especially the way that you come into a place and as I say, there's an agenda. You stick to the agenda. And often you see the people that talk a lot, and then you see people that are very quiet. They don't say much.

But you can sense that there's a lot going on. And then when you arrive and you go and sit down for a lunch or a dinner or something like that, then often those people come alive. And often those people are the spirit of everything that goes on around that table. And then you understand those people are often the glue in workplaces also. You see how they sort of bring out the spirit in everybody, you know. And you would not know that kind of thing if you do not share these different experiences wherever you go with the people that you work with. And those make those experiences

the people that you work with. And those make those experiences much more colorful. You only really get to know the culture. If you sit around a table with people and they start making jokes and you start picking up on the jokes and you start, and the humor starts flowing. That kind of thing is so special and it is something that I felt, especially during COVID for instance, that got lost and to pick it up after COVID was quite something. I was like and in the beginning of this week, I was in Cape Town where I'm doing a project. And it's like this public-private partnership project that you refer to. So it's quite a complex and intense project.

And the people, it was so nice to just be together with the people during the work hours and afterwards, you know, sharing a little bit more. It's just, you can become very isolated, especially when you're a consultant like me that work for myself, you know, got my own business, you do get a bit isolated. So for me, I really treasure those work spaces and those community spaces. Yeah, yeah, totally. And yeah, it's so interesting because when the situation happened

with our guest speaker having to postpone this week, I thought, well, let me do a solo episode. And I was like asking chat, chat, TPT about traveling tribe vibes. Not that I don't know much about it, but just for interesting and for context and this idea of community around cuisine and culture and potluck. And now that I think about it, it's, funny thing to have a conversation with AI about community and connection and suggestions around that when it couldn't really feel the essence of what you are describing. And that's so important. We yearn for that. We yearn for these moments together. We can read about it.

We can research it. But it's only when you experience it that it's really, you know, becomes alive. And so a big part of travel is that, you know, you can read guidebooks. You can find community online. But if you're not really engaging with people and touching and enjoying food together and sharing that eye contact in real life, I think a lot of that vibes get lost.

So that's great that you could experience that because I think a lot of work I know for you is online these days and it's great. It helps and I know I appreciated it when I was younger and you could be at home. But I think a lot of people are probably missing that. And so planning travels, planning things where they can go and experience that in groups.

I know there's a massive surgeons of people planning group travel, organizing locations, making sure that they connect with people in person in different places so that they can experience it or going and living in co-living places or a hostel or whatever it might be, different places in the world so that you don't have to be a solo traveler and eat alone necessarily.

Nothing wrong with that. Different learnings. But yeah, that's great that you could experience that. And so do you feel like 10 years ago, the way you traveled and thought about travel and community is different to now? I have to say that 10 years ago, my work situation and the travelling for work was more social. There were much more social opportunities and it was much more, people were more comfortable to socialize, I don't know if it's only in South Africa or whether it's all over the world, I do feel that the fast-paced life that we are living, lives that we are living, has having an impact on that. It definitely is. I feel I can, over the years,

I mean I've been doing this consulting for the last 20, 25, 35 years now. And that's a long time. And during that period, the amount of socializing that was part of the working environment, vis-à-vis now, is radically different. Much less. Much less. People, you had proper tea times, you had proper lunch times and those were part of the whole thing so that everybody can get to know each other. Now you would find a situation where it's not these lunches together, it's, There's a sensitivity also in the workplace, I think, and the workplaces that I come to visit, that people don't want to be seen that they're spending too much money on

that kind of thing. So I appreciate that. But there is a lot that goes lost as part of that. But then also at the same time, as I say, it's become working lunches. You just grab something and you sit back down and you work. I think life has changed a lot and I see it in these kind of circumstances, you know. For me, I miss it because I like to deal with people. I don't like there to be just for the job. Because often I have found that it's during those lunch breaks, it's over that table that you can be a ear for somebody that just needed that at that point in time.

A lot of the mentoring that I've done over the years of younger employees and so forth didn't happen in a formal situation. It probably more happened in those informal situations. Yeah, so there's a lot I feel that's become lost. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I agree and I think that perhaps the idea of a potluck style can become more popular because often the pressure of finances to buy the cuisine, to provide the space falls on one provider. And so I think it might be quite interesting in the future if we had to share that. So for example, if you come together and people bring things and there's less of a financial burden on one party.

And I remember feeling this for the first time when I interacted with my good friend, Leticia Galvair, who is the founder of The Bridge Home for Children in Cape Town, and she was really my first French friend in South Africa. In South Africa, our culture is very much, you have a barbecue, a braai, or whatever it might be, and if you have a dinner, you invite people, but they don't bring anything necessarily. You provide, you cook, you give the space.

That's traditionally what it's like. Generally people might bring a bit of meat but you give everything else. Maybe that's changed a bit now but that's how I grew up and I know a lot of our culture as Afrikaans people too. But that was the first time where I really saw the dinner she hosted. People brought things, everyone brought things. And so you got to experience different cuisine, people could talk about the food and all of that. But I remember thinking this is really interesting. And now that I've traveled so much, I see that that's obviously more acceptable and

it's more the case in Europe where people bring things. So maybe it'll be interesting in the workplace if there is a more of a potluck style approach to things because then we'll also be learning about each other's cultures through workplace interactions which I think is really interesting. And something I'd love to explore through Friday Fields, you know, how do how do we connect globally online but then also locally offline and learn about each other as we travel. So yeah, it's a really interesting concept. I would think, look, in a workplace, it depends on what kind of work, but it might be impractical. But in a social space, and this is interesting

that you mentioned this, and it just come up for me, that many years ago, and families still work like that often, but not in friends circles. It used to be like that, where everybody brings something, but then it's been replaced by this situation of people come and they invite it not to bring anything and then people bring flowers and wine and chocolates and those. That's become the norm, not the food so much.

And I would actually like to, I'd rather go back to the other one You know where everybody brings something because it's it's more personal, you know in a way But then I think life because life has become so fast Often people might prefer the chocolates and flowers and whatever, or other way, you know? But yeah, I just feel that there's a lot that goes amiss if one sort of miss out on those opportunities to sit down around a table and just share food. It doesn't matter really if it's a big meal or anything like that.

It could just be tapas and so forth. I think about family weekends for instance where you never really leave the table. Think about it. You kind of, you kind of stick around that table because it's like you eat like breakfast. I'm now talking when when family are really sort of together in one house and these little kids and so forth and and it's not one of those where you go out and go to places the whole time you know. You sort of eat breakfast and then you start talking and you hang around and you hang around. Oh, who wants tea? And you drink tea. And

then after a while, oh gosh, it's lunchtime. Okay, yes, let's have lunch. So it's like kind of you never leave that table, you know. And for me, that is super special that is really super special so cuisine and everything that presents is that's a big deal it is and you know you're reminding me now also for those people who are maybe solo travelers out there and you don't have that kind of tribe around you, I got reminded by a good friend of mine. I'm not the biggest cook or maybe I should say not yet. But I never really thought about food in that way. To me it was like nutrition and you eat because then you can do athletics and you can run and you can do your sports

and whatever else. But cuisine, culture, that experience, you're not only cultivating connections with other people which you can invite into your space and cook and all of that and share, but cooking for yourself while you're traveling, for example, is one of the most intimate experiences. It is one of the most beautiful gifts you can give yourself because in that moment, you might make something of your own culture while you're feeling lonely, or you might be able to just enjoy that space with yourself. So I think cuisine and travel is so intertwined with learning about yourself, learning about others and also what happens around a table is that you

end up talking like you say and so if you are from different places, you're sharing language and I do believe language is such a... Everything about a culture is in a language, all the expressions and things like that. So I think cuisine is really often at the heart of all of us. And so when we talk about traveling tribe vibes, whether it be home, nature or anything else, we all have to eat. So what I can say is thank you to you guys for having given me

wonderful traveling experiences where we could share cuisine. I often think about Morocco, the wonderful tagines that we shared there. So maybe a quick question to you is what has been your favorite cuisine that you've shared with people around the world? Most probably is Morocco know, because we've been to Morocco quite a few times. It's very distinct flavors, very distinct kind of ways, the tangies, how they prepare the food, you know, which is quite different from what we would prepare it here or in any other place, you know. And what is nice about that is mostly when we traveled to Morocco, it was with friends and people that you sort of, you're excited because we've been there.

It's exciting to share a quite different cuisine with your friends who is experiencing it for the first time. And then there's an excitement in that for you, not only the cuisine but also the excitement of people experiencing something new. So that for me is, I think that that really does stand out. Then there are things that stand out like the way we traveled is because we were sometimes just a little family, us three. We had a situation where, I think Germany for instance, quite a few times in Germany, we would invite people into our space and ask them, will you share this with us so that we can have a shared experience with you of your culture? And people were quite willing to do so.

And then after a while you're a big group and you do things that you would never have done otherwise, you drink way too much beer to start off with. But I mean, you do things totally different. And then other things that sort of come up for me that's way different is on the Camino. You just refer to language and so on the Camino, I quite a few times had a situation where because I walked one of the roads that were less traveled, not so many pilgrims on the road, and I would get to a small town and

it would just be me and one or two, three other pilgrims and they don't speak my language. I don't speak their language. So what do you do now? So in those cafes they had these paper tablecloths. So what you do is you take a pen with you paper tablecloths. So what you do is you take a pen with you and you start doing fictionary and it becomes such fun because now you're trying to explain your life and where you come from. Do I have a cat? Do I have a dog? Do I have a bird? You know, you try to explain that in pictures and it becomes a lot of fun because I'm not the best I mean drawing is not completely the best skill that I have, you know So just to make a drawing for somebody else is already in areas in itself

So yeah, it's it's wonderful So many shared things that can happen around a table, around cuisine, as the common denominator. And it's a nurturing thing. I mean, it's comfortable. I really love that. I love that. I'm going to have to brush up on my pictionary skills before I go do that Camino. But you're also reminding me before we go into another section, I just want to quickly tell the story because it's quite unique. Talking about sharing food and travel, when ChatGPT was asking me what is one of your best travelling tribe experiences, what came to mind for me was our camping experiences. So we used to go as a few families and we used to go camping in Botswana, Namibia, and Africa. And very much in the wild,

you know, the lions and the elephants are roaming around you. Well, this is the way we did it, which was great. Scariest times, but wonderful. And I remember one night we used to make this big what we call a poikki which is a really big cast iron pot and we would make you know kind of a mixture of stew like meat in there and vegetables and everything and then you make some rice and you have that. And I remember one night you guys waking me up and saying you know kind of look out the tent and we slept at the top of the vehicle so we would look down and all the cars were in a circle.

And I saw this hyena, this wild animal carrying away this poiky with its jaw. carrying away this poiky with its with its jaw. That poiky took a few big men to carry around. And so here was this creature, just like us, in a different experience, sharing our travels, sharing our cuisine with nature. I mean, he was stealing it, but that's okay. We did get the poiky back. But again, there was something to talk about.

Here was a beautiful experience around culture and cuisine and travel that we all got to share and laugh about the next day. Obviously, the men had to go off and find the poiky in the wild. So I think traveling tribe vibes and cuisine is just such an incredible topic that we can obviously talk about forever and ever. And I wonder for the people out there, kind of what have your experiences been like? What is the best cuisine you've had

and who have you shared it with? Or what funny moments have come up for you. We want to hear all the feels as you travel and feel the vibes out there. And then I want to take a really quick moment to also say as a traveling podcast, thank you to our partner in crime. So every traveler needs a co-pilot and so partner in crime. So every traveler needs a co-pilot and so kindly one of our co-pilots is Riverside FM. Thank you for being our podcasting and content creation pilot on this journey and for making it possible that we can record and produce and share all these wonderful stories and conversations out there with the world. And then also as our people, places and spaces shout out there, we do have a new co-pilot

joining our partner Spotlight this month. And so if you are a content creator, podcaster or want to be YouTuber and you don't know how to put your stuff out there, first of all, check out Riverside FM, but then also RSS.com, which is our platform we use. It's really our one-click publishing platform. So get everything out there on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and YouTube. So thank you to RSS.com for being so kind and sharing their vibes with us, and also giving our audience a special discount. So do DM us on Instagram and Facebook for the special discounts on Riverside and on RSS. And if you type in Friday Feels as a promo code, you might get a nice special surprise

from them. So thank you so much, guys. And then I wanted to move on to a quick little section called The James, which I know as you do listen to the podcast, thank you for listening, mom. You know what this is. And so I'm going to share my jam and then you can share if you want to. But a jam for me this week was that I released my song Ignite Your Fire. And finally, after four years, I guess it's the song of two years. Two years it took from writing it

to recording it, having the courage to record it and then two years from recording it to finally putting it out in the world. Finally Ignite Your Fires out there and it's a really special song to me. So it was very almost you know felt like a big moment to release it but at the same time it's been in existence for me for such a long time. And I really hope that this song ignites people's sparks out there. It's a song for the collective, from the collective. And it was just really, really special to put another song out there.

So please enjoy. And was my gym. What was yours this week? My gym this week? Gosh, I've been travelling this week. I've been sitting mostly in workshops and stuff like that. But I think my gym is just purely the community. Being together purely the community, being together with people that I work with in a more social environment, you know. Just that feeling of team-boulding, a closer team-boulding, given the fact that one is in the same room and you're doing things like more intimately together, you know, sort of things. So for me, that has been special because I often work at a distance, you know. So for me that's always a gem to be with people. I love people. And yeah, so it was great.

Amazing. I love that. I'm really glad you got to experience that again after having maybe lost some of that over the last few years and online connecting, like you say. And then one of the second last questions I have for you is, as you are a working professional, I know you also work in the bit more softest side of things. Maybe some people will say it's the hardest side of things, which is a bit more of a spiritual world. But you've walked a long career in municipal work, but also you've had interesting journey up to this point.

What do you feel has been kind of a bit of advice, some that you can share with people out there as a human, as a working professional? What has been like that thing that you've always held on to that's ignited your fire in some way out there and helped you connect with people maybe. Look I look at things quite from a spiritual perspective, yes I do. If I just look at purely on a career level I've had mentors. I've always looked for mentors. I've had a few in my life. Hopefully I try to at least now impart some knowledge to mentor other people. I'm always available for a mentoring kind of experience. It's the most rewarding thing for me is to be able to share knowledge.

For me, a day without learning is a day without sunshine. I always want to learn something more. But the other side of the coin is knowledge not shared is knowledge wasted. That is extremely important is to share with people and from a spiritual perspective it's just what you put out there is what comes back to you. The saying that everybody is sometimes just brush over really is what goes around comes around is actually a very definite law of nature. As much as gravitation is a law of nature, what goes around comes around is a law of nature. What goes around comes around is a law of nature. And if I may take a quick deeper dive into the spiritual part of that, it is just simply that it's written

in the Bible, I think for one, that treat everybody else like yourself. Because of that law what goes around comes around. If I'm going to treat you with love even in the workplace and it's not difficult it's just a matter of being tolerant, being kind, being friendly, those are all part of the collective noun of love and if you put that out there that's exactly what comes back to you. We should never forget that. That's so true, that's so true and I've often thought about that and I think that it's the latter part of that expression that is the harder part, I think, as you love yourself, because as you treat yourself, because we are all very hard on ourselves as humans.

And I think so it starts within. It's the knowing yourself, it's the being kind to yourself, the respecting your body, respecting yourself and then naturally that kind of permeates into the world I think and then that comes back to you. So it's almost like the world is a mirror, which is one of our themes a bit later in this podcast, in the mirror of the world, which I'm very excited about. But yeah, I think that's a very good point. And it's really, I always say this, but the life external reality is such a reflection of your internal reality.

And so being able to share what you've learned inside with others outside, being able to share those experiences like we are doing here now, is really the value of being human. It's connection, it's touch, it's all those things. So yeah, thank you for reminding us of that. I think that's really important. And that's really about being human and a working professional, which Friday Feels is all about. So as a last question, and I know you probably have a really long list but maybe just narrow it down to one if you can. I want to ask what is in your stack?

So what are you reading or what can you recommend or what do you want to read? Yeah you're right that's a long list because I normally read quite a couple of books at the same time. There are two books that come up for me which I would like to recommend though. The one is Letting Go written by David Hawkins. It's a very good book. It's about, yeah, I think, let me not go into length of that, but it's just a book that I would recommend. Another book of his that I would recommend is Power vs. Force. I would recommend that the two sort of be read together. Then you would know that I've always said, I still say, that the person who's had the

biggest influence on my life in terms of spiritual awakening, of spiritual growth, understanding how the world works, understanding the quantum physics really, understanding that everything is vibration and frequency and so forth, energy, is Edgar Cayce. Now Edgar Cayce was, they called him the sleeping prophet. But I would strongly recommend that any book based on Edgar Casey's work would have a profound impact. There are so many out there. So many out there.

Right through from the one side of the spectrum to the other. It depends on where you want to zoom into. But I would strongly recommend any book by Etka Casey. We're going to add that to the stack. I will then go maybe choose my favorite Edgar Cayce book and see which one resonates for me. I also really believe when a book finds you, when you're ready to read it, it will be there. So, yeah, but thank you so much.

We'll add those to the stack for sure. And I know you've got tons of other recommendations, so feel free to send them over and we'll be growing our reading list. So for those that are keen, head over to the website. You can click on the books there and you can buy them. The links will be there for Amazon. And thank you for sharing all your stories and for reminding us of community in cuisine. Thank you for coming on and being open to chat about all of this. It's really, it's an honor for me to have you here sharing. And I know that right now we would love to share a cup of tea together after this but hopefully very soon and we will have to do with

with online eye contact for now. E-Coffee Connect. After all these years I'm used to that so we do that quite well. It's's a privilege to be here with you Nicole. I really am privileged and I'm honored to be part of this. And yes, it's awesome. Well, thank you. And good luck with all your travels, for your work vibes and to everyone else out there. Have an amazing, amazing weekend.

If you haven't just yet, follow Friday Feels on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn. You can share with us all your feels this week by tagging us at fridayfeels.co and you can also find the website at that handle. And now, as you ease into this weekend, take a moment celebrate who you've become, what you've overcome and what is yet to come as you do the crazy and cool things that you do as the authentic you. You know the truth about life and work is that it's hard but the beauty is this global working experience that you're in while we are in it together. So keep connecting, empowering and inspiring this week and of course keep it raw and real.

Until next time.