JILLIAN Abbott grew up in Kangaroo Flat.
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She now lives and teaches in New York, writes a blog called The Mindful Mouth and has started a podcast called A Year of Mindful Eating.
“Sometimes it's hard to grapple with. I get out of the subway and stop and wonder how I got here (from Bendigo),” Ms Abbott said.
“I used to work for a New York City council member and had to go various meetings to talk about tunnels under Manhattan and would think ‘maybe this is a dream’.”
Ms Abbott also teaches communication, literature, writing and researching as a discipline as subjects at the City University of New York.
She has written for a handful of New York newspapers and in her writing career has also been an opinion or feature writer at The Australian, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times.
Her path to New York began in the 1990s when she married an American. Her children were also born in America. They lived in Australia for eight years before moving to the US in 2000.
The podcast and blog began after Ms Abbott’s decision to return to work, which she said was a daunting task.
“I had been out of work force for years looking after the kids and then I got divorced and had to start working again. It's a really hard road,” she said.
“I was really struggling to get full-time work and got overlooked for a position that went to a much younger man and it devastated me. I put on weight, was depressed and then realised I need to stop that. So I went to a (food) cleansing (talk) and they spoke about mindful eating and looking into the food to see connections.
“It started me thinking about food and took (my mind) back to Bendigo with my mother and her sponge cakes, pies and pasties.”
Ms Abbott said it was comforting to remember her life through food.
“Things like remember my dad teaching me how to plant vegetables and other memories associated with (my childhood) were interesting,” she said.
“When I was planting my pot plants, we did a seasonal podcast about tomatoes.
“We are also looking at a cleansing podcast and one about the psychological desire to eat.”
After a slow start, Ms Abbott’s blog has grown since its inception.
“The blog is already a year old but is still growing,” she said. “It started off getting four or five followers a a week but now can be up to 50. I want to keep going and do another year of mindful eating.
“Australians want to hear about American food and Americans want to hear about Australian food.”