Famed baker Una Leonard has revealed that she battled eating disorders while developing her career in the world of cooking.
One has published a best-selling book called sweet therapy in which she describes how to make her favorite cakes and how baking helped her through the toughest times:
“I had anorexia, I had bulimia and I was socially unable to eat in front of people,” he explained to The Pat Kenny Show.
“So that led to my eating disorder, but I love food.
“I love creating food, I love being in the kitchen, I love cooking for people.
“But I just couldn’t love him myself.”
His mental health problems started in high school and became more and more severe as time went on:
“I started to hate myself, I didn’t like myself and I was taking control of the only thing I could control, which was what I was putting in my body,” she recalled.
“So I stopped eating because I wanted to fade away like one. I didn’t want to be noticed, I didn’t want to be seen, I didn’t want to be doing all those things.
“But I still went to my camogie games and showed up to everything with a smile on my face and acting like everything was fine.”
Ironically, though she often struggled to feed herself properly, preparing food for other people gave her a reprieve from the dark thoughts swirling in her head:
“It was like you were completely insane, you’re in the kitchen, you’re in a flow, you’re putting these ingredients together and creating something,” he continued.
“And it was so special. Hours passed and I was just happy out there.”
Over the years, this fascination with pastry turned into a serious business and he launched his own company, 2210 Patisserie, which now has 15 employees:
“In the beginning, it was a passion project. It was purely a business to make me do something every day that I loved.
“And it’s still something that I love to do every day and I don’t care if I have to get up at two in the morning every day, if I have to work a 30-hour day, whatever I have to do.
“But it wasn’t easy.
“I remember the days at the beginning, I couldn’t get any credit from any of my suppliers, I was selling buns and closing the door and running downstairs to buy supplies so I could make a cake with the money that had just come in.
“But it didn’t matter because he was doing what he loved to do.”
Main image: Una and Pat Kenny.
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