**SONJA:**
Let's meet Katarina. She's coming from Greece. Her family is a Greek family with all the cooking that you imagine around it. She's been an event producer in Berlin and in London, and eventually, she moved to Wales, where she became the owner of an organic shop and created her brand, the Intuitive Cook.
**KATERINA:**
I've always felt like things in my house were a bit different. You know, talking about food has always been a thing we do in our family. I always trust that it's going to be a tasty meal. Cooking is something that makes us human. Animals are extremely wise, but there is not a single animal that cooks. So you start building that trust in your own taste.
**SONJA:**
You know what? I feel that's the same thing you do when building a business.
Sonja: You are on your soul's journey on one side, and on the other side, you are on a business journey. And grow happy like a rich hippie, we're bringing those two things together. I'm Sonia Williamson, your podcast host, and let's grow happy like a rich hippie!
**INTRO MUSIC**
**SONJA:**
The question we are going to talk about is how ditching the recipe actually really brings healing into your life and helps you to create really amazing and great meals. Let's see how every spice holds an emotion, how every dish tells a story, and how every culinary creation is a journey in itself. I'm going to bring Katarina on and be beyond excited and grateful that she said yes to this life.
**Katerina:**
Yes, I'm here. I'm very glad to be here.
**SONJA:**
It was so beautiful talking to you, and I said already I didn't know your Greek roots, your values, and your family history. And you know what? I think we can start with that. These values that your parents have given to you, and you were raised in Athens. How did you carve out your own unique path in all of that that made you end up in Wales creating the intuitive cook?
**KATERINA:**
Yeah, well, I think the interesting thing is that I was raised in a mixed family. My dad is Greek, my mum is German. So I think from the very beginning, it wasn't a typical family. I've always felt like things in my house were a bit different. And I think my parents always supported me and my brother to be sort of independent people. Is it like not really belonging to one thing and the other and trying to find your path? How would you feel when you go inside, how does it feel for you? That is an interesting question because I've changed location and the feeling of home so many times.
I would say, at first, I definitely felt I was Greek, and that is where home is because that's where I grew up, even though I grew up in a bilingual family and all that. But I felt that Greece was where my home was. And then I lived in Germany because that's where I went to university. In Berlin, right? In Berlin, yes. And I think that was kind of a bit of a strange situation because I didn't feel German at all. But I spoke German like a German. So I felt I had to always kind of explain to people, no, I'm not German.
Then I moved to London. And that was kind of like a relief because, in London, it seemed everybody was a foreigner. Yeah. And I kind of felt I fitted into that a lot more. But obviously, now we are sort of like 15 years down the line of me being abroad. So now, suddenly, going back to Greece didn't feel like home anymore. Like, you know, I don't even know what a newspaper is costing. But that specific thing always made me feel like a tourist. I don't even know what the newspaper is costing.
So, yeah, and I think moving to Wales, strangely, kind of eventually made me feel like home, like a found home. And I can't explain why, because Wales has a very strong local culture and this is a very Welsh-speaking area. So I don't necessarily speak the language of most people around me. Of course, everybody is bilingual, so it's not a problem. But, you know, even though it is this very different foreign country from the rest of the UK, I somehow feel at home here because I think this is what I didn't know about myself, that this very simple rural life really suits me. And as I, you know, spent all my previous life in Athens, in Berlin, in London, I didn't know I was such a country girl, but I had this inkling. And then I followed that inkling and, well, here I am now feeling at home in the middle of nowhere, more or less. Not entirely in the middle of nowhere, but more or less. It feels like the middle of nowhere, even though our little town and our shop are only two miles away.
**SONJA:**
Yeah, wow. You're talking about the town and the shop and all these emotions that came up in me when you talked about Greece and the streets of Berlin. I mean, I live in Germany. I'm Austrian, actually. I come from Vienna, but I live in Germany. I know Berlin, the streets hustling and bustling with food. London, my husband is from London. I mean, he is not from London, but he lived in London for a long time. So I was there very often. Again, food city, you know, every of restaurants, Indian influences. Wow. From the whole world. And then you are in Wales. Now you've got your organic shop, and you created the intuitive cook. Tell us a bit about your cooking journey, the spices, and the flavors. You know what I said in the beginning.
**KATERINA:**
I grew up in a family where we enjoyed cooking together a lot. On the weekend, it was the kind of a thing we would do, either cook at home or go and have lunch somewhere with friends. And there was always this thing about enjoying flavors, experimenting with flavors, thinking, oh, wow, this combination tastes so great. You know, when we were at the restaurant, we were always trying to guess what was in the dish.
So and, you know, talking about food has always been a thing we do in our family. So I think I just grew up with that without thinking this is anything special because this is the way I knew how it was.
**SONJA:**
So is it like how we imagine it? I know the Big Fat Greek Wedding. It's a movie and it's like with this Greek people who are like celebrating and the mama coming in. And is it something like this? Well, big celebrations may be something like this. You know, obviously, this is a wedding.
**KATERINA:**
So obviously, my family wasn't that way because my family wasn't a typical Greek family. OK. And there is an influence. Yeah, well, it's a thing, you know, because my big fat Greek wedding is actually a wonderful film. And I find it interesting how, you know, obviously, it's meant to be a caricature, but like every caricature, it's about blowing up the things that are already there.
So, you know, it's true, except that it's not quite as over the top as in the film.
And I also think that immigrant communities kind of are more typical because they hold on to their culture and their identity inside of, you know, an environment that is not there. So I think that is the other thing about that film, that, you know, this is not a family in Greece. This is a Greek community in Canada. And, you know, I always remember my father went to university in Germany. That's how my parents met. And he always said that he was feeling more Greek in Germany than he ever felt in Greece.
So, you know, that's another funny thing that happens with identity, that when we feel there is a lot of, you know, foreign identity around us, we kind of really focus more on our own identity.
**SONJA:**
Yeah. Yeah. It's easier for some people to generally find the core of who you are amidst the challenge, amidst the difference, because there you've got to say no to things. And that's obvious. And then you find the yes in yourself. So that's very common.
**KATERINA:**
Yeah. And I find, you know, talking about the no's and the yes and maybe the intuitive cook where I'm, you know, trying to build a business. What I'm doing when I'm cooking where, you know, I'm never afraid to try something new. I'm never afraid to experiment.
And I always trust that it's going to be a tasty meal, and it is. And to find that kind of trust and freedom to experiment in business I find that difficult. It's difficult with the shop because when we started building this shop, we went by me and my husband, that is we we went by on kind of building a shop we would love to shop in. And this was what we were, you know, doing. We didn't kind of go into, though, this is how you do retail and all that stuff.
With an online business, I'm falling more into the trap of trying to do it the right way. So I'm still finding what what my way is.
**SONJA:**
Yeah. Maybe there is also an idea of like saying what you don't want and really making a stupid list and then saying what you want. That's the way I've been working with my clients. It is like we said when you are in an environment that's not yours. You very much know what you would like to be. So that could be a little thing that just you came and made me think of. And the other thing, what I find really interesting about your story is the thing with the organic shop, how you said to me in the talk we had before you wrote you're the shop owner, and the door opens, and somebody comes in and says, hello, Katarina.
What's an offer today? What about your fruits or what about this? Can you help me with that? And this is the feeling eventually that you can already feel in the real world that you can put into you into a cook. And I have to say, I've seen some things. They are pretty amazing. Tell us a little bit about what you actually do there.
**KATERINA:**
Yes. I mean, funnily enough, this is again, you know, goes back to this concept of trust because I really believe that cooking is something that makes us human. And there is actually interesting research that kind of connects that to the way the human species has evolved and that cooking actually made us human.
But just a long story. Let's not get into that.
**SONJA:**
I get it. I get the emotion of it. I just compare it to being on the fire and just just ripping off some meat from an animal. I'm a vegetarian. But yeah, the more refined you become, the more reflective, the more mindful you become. Is that a little bit what you mean?
**KATERINA:**
Yes. And also, cooking makes food more digestible. You know, if you are a cow or if you are a tiger, you spend most of your day either munching or digesting. And the fact that humans started cooking their food gave them more nutrients with less time involved. So they had time to start doing other things, building tools, building houses, making pottery, whatever.
All these kinds of human things that we do that animals don't. And, you know, animals do a lot of things. And, you know, I believe that animals can think and animals can feel. Animals are extremely wise, but there is not a single animal that cooks.
**SONJA:** *(laughs)* Not even monkeys.
**KATERINA:**
Not even monkeys.
Yes. So I really believe that we all know how to cook. We all know what good food is. Even if you haven't cooked a thing in your whole life, you've been eating your whole life. So you know what good food is.
And your body knows what good food is, but it's all been buried under this, you know, modern food culture where we believe that we have to be told by the experts, you know, we have to be told by the chefs how to cook. We have to be told by the recipe book writers what the recipes are and what the steps are. We have to be told by the nutritionist what's healthy for us. And so we end up with this fear of really being afraid of doing something wrong. And this idea that, oh, if I change an ingredient or if I don't put in the exact, you know, two and a half grams of basil in here, I'm ruining the dish. This just is not true. This is, you know, a myth that we have been made to believe because suddenly, you know, our role models in the kitchen, it's not your grandmother or your aunt. It's the chef on some sort of celebrity cooking program. And we all trying to be chefs, but, you know, a chef is not a cook for good reason because cooking for paying patrons in a restaurant is an entirely different thing than cooking in the kitchen. It's not a matter of better or worse or tastier or not tastier. It's just you comparing apples with oranges. And we all want to be chefs, forgetting how to be cooks, which is, you know, cook some tasty, nourishing food at home every day, you know, except for exceptions, you know. And so many people these days cooking at home is the exception. We will maybe cook for Christmas or for a dinner party, but we generally try to avoid cooking. Not all of us, but, you know, the culture is trying to tell us that the convenient thing to do is how to avoid cooking or how to minimize cooking because cooking gets in the way of eating, which is an absurd concept to me because, you know, cooking and eating is a very, very, very important thing.
And so, you know, cooking is one thing. So once you allow yourself to trust your taste, your taste buds because we all have taste buds and they don't lie, once you allow yourself to trust that and once you allow yourself to experiment, cooking just suddenly becomes fun and easy. And it really does. And this is what we do in the intuitive cook. And I'm not saying, oh, just go and throw some stuff in a pot and it will be fine.
**SONJA** I was just going to ask you what happens if I throw stuff in and it's a big mess. And then it's like, oh my God, she's told me to do so.
**KATERINA:**
It's not like that. If you look behind the recipes, you know 95 percent of all recipes follow the same structure with some variations. So I'm all about recognizing the patterns behind the recipes. And once you start seeing the patterns, then it's really easy to play and to improvise within that pattern. So you have a guiding structure you can see. So you don't get confused, and it's not like throwing it all in and making a big mess. But once you understand the structure, then you can play within that structure. And that makes it easy.
You can also look at a recipe, any recipe in a book, and see the structure. And then you can simplify the recipe to match what you like or the fact that your partner doesn't like mushrooms or your kid doesn't like broccoli or you don't have, I don't know, peas today. You know, you don't need meat, you know, you don't need a vegan recipe to make a meal without meat. I mean, you really don't. But you need to understand the principles behind recipes and behind the flavor, which is even more important.
And once you understand that, then you can then you can improvise. This is how my lesson came about because I was just I never thought about it. I was just throwing stuff in a pot. But it's not random. And when I decide I think this is a valuable skill to share, I'm going to start teaching it. I actually sat down, and I said, OK, what is it that I'm doing?
And I think my brain is really good at analyzing things and seeing those patterns and those structures. So I saw what is behind what I'm doing. And I started teaching that. And now that I'm tuned to that, I can see how other people who talk about cooking in, you know, in that more kind of free creative way.
And they are, you know, even chefs and cooking writers out there who have this more intuitive approach. And it's so funny to me to see that these chefs who have more training than me talk about exactly the same concepts and principles that I already talked about. So which means that, you know, it all boils down to the same concepts regardless. So maybe I have this different approach because I'm not a chef, I'm a home cook like you.
**SONJA:**
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, but it's so freeing and liberating to know to see someone like you, you know, and I want to want this to be an inspiration for anyone who's watching this and thinking, wow, I want to build a business. I want to do that. What can we cut? What you did, Katerina, was basically just really going deep inside what you know, what you do, what you love, connect everything together, and bring this business to life with that. And I find for the people also for me hearing like, look, there's someone who's done all the work on this, understanding the complexities of all these recipes and making it super easy for me. So I can be liberated and just cook like doing a little doodle on paper. That's great. That's amazing. So I don't have the idea of having to go for fast food because I am the one who provides slow, fast food in a way. I don't know if I'm explaining it right, but I love that approach.
**KATERINA:**
Yes. And I mean, once we stop worrying about what to cook, what to plan, what is on the shopping list, all these things, because I think most of the kind of stress and frustration around cooking isn't the cooking itself. It's all the overthinking and over-planning that goes into it. And once we learn how to just open the fridge and cook with what is there and also maybe know the few things that are useful to have around so that even if we think there is nothing in the house, actually, we still can make a great meal.
So when you have these two things dialled in, you can actually just open the fridge and start cooking, and then cooking doesn't take a long time.
**SONJA:**
Yeah, this is amazing. I was going to ask you another question, but I just saw we've got already, we're already almost 25 minutes in. So I would like to ask you my final question, which is, after all, we've learned from you, your life, you're carving out a unique path. You're all the inspirations that you had and the intuitive cook from any area of that. Do you have one single message that you want to give the audience now at this point to finish off this interview?
**KATERINA**
You have to get your pots dirty, which means you're learning by doing. So you have to start cooking and start tasting and start noticing what you like and what you don't like and what happens when you add something.
So you start building that trust in your own taste. And that doesn't work by me or anybody else telling you what to cook and how to cook. It really, you have to get your pots dirty and start doing it. And the more you do it, the more it will actually click.
**SONJA:**
You know what, I feel that's the same thing you do when building a business. Katarina, thank you for this interview and let's be inspired by those words and let's together, Grow Gappy like a Rich Hippie.
**KATERINA**
Thank you so much for having me. And yeah, definitely, let's grow happy like a rich hippie. I love that. Bye. Bye
**SONJA:** *(laughs)* Nice. Bye. Thank you.
- EXIT MUSIC -
