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Hello ☺️ I though it would be good if I introduced myself here! It's maybe good to know who is behind the scenes of Oh My Goddess! Mamma Cacao is very much the Star of the show and me her humble student. 🤎 Thank you for everyone who follows and takes the time to pop by. For the stories, comments and shares. It's all so very much appreciated. It's coming up to 5 years and it's a beautifully slow and meandering journey ~ just how I like it! A few little things about me ~ ♡ I'm Nicky and I live in North Yorkshire UK. Not far from York. ♡ I'm 55 years old and very Capricorn! ♡ I grew up in a very working class Hull life as an only child with just my mum ♡ I was literally obsessed with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a kid and read it every week! ♡ I did a degree in Hospitality Management in Sheffield ♡ I was a wild party girl for the entire 90s and run a night in Leeds in 1998 ♡ I was married in 1999 after 20 days of meeting my husband ♡ I became a mum in 2003 to my beautiful daughter Ruby May who is now 22 ♡ we began home schooling in 2010 after the tragic passing of her dad ♡ we travelled and healed together living in Ibiza, Portugal and Hong Kong ♡ Ruby now studies at the Edinburgh College of Art and is a beautiful artist ♡ I now live blissfully alone, enjoying the company of plants in all forms. As my teachers, my medicine and my friends. ♡ I've been a very natural and intuitive creator and holder of sacred space and ceremonies for over three decades ♡ I have experience as a doula for births, death and grief. Supporting others through significant thresholds of life's journey. ♡ I'm an actor and have mainly done Shakespeare, but last year was the Blue Fairy in panto! ♡ I'm enjoying meeting myself in this new phase of my life and excited to see what unfolds. There's probably much more but there's just a little snippet! Thank you again for being here on this journey with myself and our beloved Mamma Cacao. Such a strong and loving guide through these times we find ourselves. Every day is a day to learn and I want also to thank Ruby who is my greatest teacher and has made me the woman I am today. 🤎🙏
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A beautiful day spent tucked away in the Howardian Hills. A small circle of women sharing time together. Drinking cacao and simply being. A chance to stop and breathe. A day out of time just for you ♡ Here are the dates for April and May. If you have any questions or you'd like to book a place drop me a message. Much love, Nicky xx 🫶🤗💛
A rabbit sat perfectly still beside the river. Then I noticed a second one. Spring does this. It asks you to stop. And if you stop, it shows you things. Two rabbits playing, goat willow buds breaking their sheaths, a purple hue so quiet you’d miss it if you were moving at your usual speed. Meanwhile, somewhere in the distance, a lorry reverses. A thug runs a country. The week has been loud and ugly and frightening. And the navelwort is sweet. This is the thing about wild food in spring. The young navelwort doesn’t care about the news cycle. It does what it always does when the cold is still in the air – it becomes delicious. Not cooked. Not prepared. Just picked and eaten, standing next to a wall, wind on your skin. The world can be run by psychopaths. The goat willow will still bud. The navelwort will still sweeten in the cold. Paying attention is not escapism. It’s the only reliable medicine for the madness of empire. Robin Harford  Todays message from Sherman the Tortoise, Mamma Cacao and Amanita is to S L O W D O W N 🤎 🍄 🐢 📷Thank you so much Julie Core for this fantastic picture of her beloved wise Sherman!🐢🤎🤗  Yesterday this exciting treasure dropped onto my door mat, hot off the press! I've been patiently waiting for it's release and here it is! 'Vianne' the prequel to the much loved 'Chocolat' written by the wonderful Joanne Harris. This book is the story of Vianne, who is pregnant with her daughter, and begins six years before she opens her scandalous chocolaterie in the small French village of Lansquenet. I am so excited to go on this journey with Vianne and be taken on an adventure as the winds blow and move her in so many directions. The destination 'Chocolat'. This story has been such an influence in my own journey. A single woman with a daughter travelling and exploring life in a way that was not always understood. Like me arriving in a small village set around a church. An outsider that arrives bringing a wild and bohemian energy that is too much for many! Her journey explores what it means to follow your soul even when it doesn't make sense to anyone, including ourselves. To walk a different path and be open to receive what each day brings. Vianne lives life on her terms. In ' Chocolat' it is about cacao from Guatemala, not a confectionary chocolate. The story explores the themes of guilt and pleasure, shame and passion. The deep rooted conditionings of a village rooted in patriarchy and religion. Slowly melted away by this woman and her daughter's relentless daring to be bold and beautiful. This story is alongside with 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' the reason I'm here today, doing what I do. The beauty and magic of Chocolat. 🤎 Thank you to the wonderful Joanne Harris for taking us back in time and making this journey even more! 🤎🤗💃🫶🌹  "The psyches and souls of women also have their own cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place.” Clarissa Pinkola Estés  I have always been deeply fascinated with plants and fungus and their alchemical reactions. Particularly what happens when we introduce such things as heat, liquids, acids and alkalines and the time things take for their structures and properties to begin to change. This month I've been enjoying foraging for Amanita Muscaria pictured above. They're really abundant this year and are such a beautiful mushroom, but require very careful and well researched attention. There is a very specific temperature for them to be dried, which I do in a dehydrator in the second pic. It's at this temperature that the ibotenic acid begins to convert into muscimol. It must be done with care and patience. Too cool and the alchemy doesn't begin. Too hot and the medicinal properties we're wanting to work with will be destroyed. It then got me thinking about Cacao beans. The process for Ceremonial Cacao requires the beans to be gently toasted slowly between 110° - 130°c. It is at this sweet spot the reaction known as the Maillard reaction begins. The natural sugars and amino acids release to give us those delicous rich notes we love about Cacao. Too hot and it will be smoky and burnt, too cool and it will taste flat. As well as enhancing the taste, toasting at these very specific temperatures helps release and preserve the important medicinal compounds such as anandamide, phenylethylamine, theobromine and flavonoids. This is why regular chocolate doesn't contain these compounds as the beans are roasted up to temperatures of between 170° - 200°c which destroys any of the beans wonderful medicinal properties. The benefits to chocolate manufacturers is to mainly intensify the flavour, develop a more uniform colour and kill any microbes. I am certainly not an expert and there is so much information available to explore if you wish to dive deeper. This is a very simplified 'in a nutshell' version of what is a highly complex and deeply fascinating science. Much love! 🤎😊🍄
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