Coffee, Recipes and a Quiet Corner of the Garden
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no additional cost to you.
There is a spot in my garden where I like to disappear for a while.
It’s underneath the tree house, surrounded by the garden, with enough shade to escape the summer sun.
I bring a cup of coffee.
My recipe notebook.
A pen.
And for a little while, that’s all I need.
There is no grand plan for these moments. I’m not trying to be productive. Usually, I simply want to sit somewhere quiet, drink my coffee and write down a recipe I’ve recently made before I forget exactly what I put in it.
Because that happens rather often.
The Problem With Cooking Without a Recipe
I cook a lot by feeling.
A little of this.
Taste.
A bit more of that.
Taste again.
Maybe some fish sauce.
Perhaps it needs acidity.
One more spoonful.
Done.
This is perfectly fine until someone asks me:
“How did you make this?”
And suddenly I have absolutely no idea.
“A little bit of everything” is unfortunately not a very useful recipe.
Since starting Chez Thao Hoang, I’ve become much more conscious of writing things down.
If I want to share the food I actually cook at home, I need to pay attention to what I’m doing.
How much did I use?
How long did I cook it?
What did I change?
Would I make it differently next time?
So now, whenever I make something I particularly like, I try to capture it in my notebook.
Coffee First
But before the writing comes coffee.
Always.
I make myself a cup and take it outside.
There is something different about drinking coffee in the garden rather than at the kitchen table.
Inside, I immediately notice things that need doing.
A dish.
Laundry.
An email.
Something on the counter that should be put away.
Outside, those things become much easier to ignore.
I sit down under the tree house, open my notebook and take that first sip.
Already, the pace changes.
A Garden Doesn’t Need to Be Perfect
My garden isn’t a perfectly styled place where every plant behaves itself.
There are weeds.
There are things growing where I didn’t intend them to grow.
Some plants thrive.
Others clearly have different plans.
There are unfinished jobs everywhere if I choose to look for them.
But I’ve realised that if I wait until everything is finished before allowing myself to enjoy the garden, I’ll never sit down.
A garden is never really finished.
Something always needs watering, cutting, planting, tying, harvesting or rescuing.
So I’ve learned to sit among the unfinished things.
It’s something I’ve been learning more and more — to enjoy the season I’m in rather than constantly rushing toward the next thing. I wrote more about that in The Season I’m Learning Not to Rush.
The weeds can wait.
My coffee cannot.
Writing Down the Recipes of Everyday Life
My recipe notebook isn’t particularly organised either.
There are recipes written carefully from beginning to end.
There are ingredients scribbled in the margins.
There are question marks.
There are crossed-out quantities.
Sometimes there is simply:
“Good. Make this again.”
These notes might eventually become proper recipes for Chez Thao Hoang.
A Vietnamese dish I grew up eating.
Something made with vegetables from the garden.
A quick summer salad.
A sauce I threw together one evening.
Or something inspired by living in France.
I love that mixture.
My cooking today isn’t entirely Vietnamese and it isn’t entirely French.
It’s simply what happens in my kitchen after years of living between those influences.
The Recipes Have Stories Too
The older I get, the more I realise that recipes aren’t only lists of ingredients.
I remember food through moments.
Who made it.
Where we ate it.
What was growing in the garden.
What season it was.
Who was sitting at the table.
A recipe for bamboo shoots means more when the bamboo came from my own garden.
A fig recipe feels different when the figs arrived from my neighbor’s tree.
A simple summer salad reminds me of those days when it was far too hot to cook anything else.
Those details don’t necessarily change the taste.
But they change the story.
And that’s what I want Chez Thao Hoang to keep.
Not just instructions for making food.
The life happening around it.
The Sounds Around Me
When I stop trying to do something every minute, I start noticing how much is happening in the garden.
Birds.
Leaves moving overhead.
Insects buzzing somewhere nearby.
The occasional car in the distance.
Cicadas on hot summer days.
Sometimes children playing.
Nothing dramatic.
Just the background sounds of home.
I can sit there writing for twenty minutes and feel as though I’ve had a proper break.
Slow Living Isn’t Doing Nothing
I used to think slow living meant having lots of free time.
Now I think it’s almost the opposite.
Life can be busy.
There are always responsibilities, projects, work and things that need attention.
Slow living, for me, is choosing not to let all of them occupy every minute. It’s also at the heart of what I wrote in What Slow Living Means to Me — slow living isn’t about doing less for the sake of it, but being more present for ordinary life.
Sometimes I can spend an hour in the garden.
Sometimes I have twenty minutes.
It still counts.
Make coffee.
Go outside.
Sit down.
Write one page.
That’s enough.
Some Recipes Begin in the Garden
Sitting there also makes me look around differently.
I might be writing about one recipe while noticing basil that needs harvesting.
Or tomatoes becoming ripe.
Or herbs that could go into dinner.
Suddenly another idea begins.
That’s one of my favourite things about having a garden.
The kitchen and the garden constantly talk to each other.
That connection between growing and cooking is one of my favourite parts of having a garden, and something I share more about in From Garden to Table.
Instead of deciding exactly what I want to cook and then buying every ingredient, sometimes I look at what’s ready outside and start from there.
What can I make with this?
And that’s how another recipe ends up in the notebook.
A Cup of Coffee That Goes Cold
There is, however, one problem with bringing coffee and a notebook into the garden.
I forget the coffee.
I start writing.
Then I notice something growing nearby.
Then I remember something I want to add to the recipe.
Then perhaps I take a photograph.
Eventually I reach for my cup.
Cold.
Again.
Apparently, this is my version of slow coffee.
Very, very slow.
A Little Corner of My Day
I don’t need a beautiful café or a weekend away to have a moment to myself.
Sometimes all I need is to walk a few steps outside.
These small, ordinary pauses remind me a little of A Quiet Sunday at Home — nothing extraordinary needs to happen for a day to feel good.
Coffee in one hand.
Notebook in the other.
Find some shade under the tree house and sit down.
The garden doesn’t become silent.
My list of things to do doesn’t disappear.
Nothing particularly important happens.
But for a little while, I get to enjoy the life I’m usually so busy maintaining.
And perhaps that’s why I keep coming back to this little corner.
Some days I write a recipe.
Some days I write only a few sentences.
And some days I just drink the coffee.
Preferably before it gets cold.
SEO DETAILS
SEO title: Coffee, Recipes & a Quiet Moment in My Garden
Focus keyword: slow living in the garden
Secondary keywords: garden slow living, coffee in the garden, recipe journal, simple living in France, French country lifestyle, everyday slow living
Meta description: Coffee, a recipe notebook and a shady corner beneath the tree house — one of my favourite simple slow-living rituals in the garden.
Suggested URL slug: coffee-recipes-quiet-garden
Excerpt: Coffee in one hand, my recipe notebook in the other, and a shady spot beneath the tree house. Sometimes the simplest part of my day is the one I enjoy most.
Suggested category: Journal → Slow Living
Internal links: What Slow Living Means to Me, A Quiet Sunday at Home, The Season I’m Learning Not to Rush, and From Garden to Table.
Featured image idea: A natural garden scene beneath a wooden tree house: a small rustic table in dappled shade with an open handwritten recipe notebook, pen and cup of coffee. Greenery surrounds the scene, with soft summer sunlight filtering through the leaves. Intimate, warm and slightly imperfect rather than staged.
