Giulia Di Crescenzo, you make a very interesting point about authenticity, it’s something which I’m constantly working towards, yet fear of judgement is always there and is anathema to it. That’s why I publish daily, hoping to strip away the layers that I falsely use to protect me from the world.

Austen and Marquez wrote fiction, albeit anchored in their own lives. However, those titans of literature probably consumed huge amounts of literature before, or alongside their writing. Most writers seem to have an encylopeadic knowledge of literature. Therefore, it could be argued that their knowledge and research was present, but it was founded in the great writers that preceeded them.

There is a bias in my article, because my goal is writing about food. When I think of writers such as Michael Pollan, I see someone who has reached their position through their fantastic ability to string a sentence together, backed up with vast knowledge of the food world. In that context of food writing, knowledge is a prerequisite, yet authenticity allows it to be transferred in an accessible, relateable way.

I love the work you are doing on aquaponics, keep going. It would be great to visit one day.