Welcome to The Good Journal
I grew up in houses where people stayed longer than they planned to. My mum was always surrounded by friends, usually with kids somewhere nearby. People came over, the kettle went on, Wagon Wheels appeared, and nobody needed much of a reason to stay for another conversation. At the time, I don’t think I thought of any of that as hosting. It was just what home felt like.
I understand it differently now that I have children of my own. There is something very special about growing up surrounded by people who know you, care about you and feel comfortable enough to walk through the door. I want my children to know that feeling too.
Food was part of that in another way at my Greek nana’s house. You were going to eat, whether you had planned to or not, and leaving without several containers of food was basically impossible. To her, feeding people was never really presented as a grand gesture. It was just what you did when someone you loved was in your house. I think I understood what food could mean long before I ever thought about making a business from it.
With my Grandma, the days looked different. We spent a lot of time in thrift shops, looking through things other people had decided they were finished with. She could see something in an object that most people had already walked past. Then we would end up back in her garden. I still think about her when I’m gardening now. Not because I’m trying to recreate what she had, but because I recognise that same feeling of being interested in what something might become if you give it a bit of time.
There was my dad too. I grew up watching someone who worked hard because that was simply how he approached life. I probably understand that part of him more now than I ever did growing up. Working, raising children and building something of your own has a way of making you appreciate the people who taught you how to keep showing up.
When Good Grazd began, food was the obvious place for all of these parts of me to land. But the funny thing is, the more the business has grown, the more it has started to look like the life that came before it.
I still find myself bringing home old things because I can see what they could be. I still want to grow things. I still care far too much about what goes on a table and how a room feels when people walk into it. And I still believe that feeding somebody is one of the simplest ways of telling them they matter.
So maybe Good Grazd becoming bigger than grazing was never really about becoming something different. Maybe we just finally made room for everything that was already there.
That is really what The Good Journal is for. There are parts of Good Grazd that don’t belong on a product page and can’t always be squeezed into an Instagram caption. Things we are making, learning, finding, growing or simply thinking about for longer than expected.
It might be where I tell you why I dragged home a piece of old crystal nobody else wanted, or what I’m learning from trying to grow something properly. Sometimes it will have something to do with food. Sometimes it probably won’t. Mostly, it is a place for the things around the edges of Good Grazd that often explain us better than the things we sell.
Good Grazd has changed a lot since it began. I don’t think the reason behind it has.
I still want people to feel looked after. I still think the small things are usually the things we remember. The Journal is just somewhere to notice them properly.