Carla Bianca Ravanes-Higham
Stephanie Zubiri-Crespi is the woman every little girl dreamt of becoming in the early 2000s. Her beautiful face helped launch many products but it was her achievements that inspired everyone to aspire to become both beautiful and smart.
A chef, a writer, a television host, and an entrepreneur, Stephanie has always embodied the multi-hyphenated woman that every girl dreams of becoming and she does so with grace and humility.
Stephanie’s life today is made even more meaningful because of her two sons, Sebastian and Maximilian and her husband, Jonathan.
When asked about what changes the new season of her life brought, she responds, “One of the biggest changes I have had was that everything I do now has a greater purpose. Like before, I used to work for myself and achieve success for my career. Today, everything I do has a purpose. Every pay check, decision, and so on is anchored to my family and my desire for my kids to have a better life and a better future and that is really a huge difference.”
As she shares on her website, Stephanie aims to live a life that is defined by the moments and memories with those she shares her life with. After spending years in the middle of Manila’s “hectic rhythm” as she describes so herself, Stephanie has chosen to slow down and enjoy the richness of life in its simplicity.
Everything that Stephanie does now is anchored to her life’s greatest love: her home. This is the inspiration behind Stephanie’s book titled Feast with Me, the country’s only food and wine pairing book.
She shares, “It just came to a point in my life when I wanted to bring everything back to the home. I used to do a lot of food and restaurant reviews and at the end of the day, you just get saturated. There are so many food offerings here in Manila and it’s getting really pricey, Manila is becoming such a pricey city. With this in mind, I found out that it was more fun to actually cook at home, invite a few friends over for a nice meal, and create a moment, an experience.”
She goes on to say that staying at home has a lot of benefits when it comes to bonding and building relationships, “You actually get to talk to people and people are comfortable enough to stay and you really spend a lot of time together. You linger and you get to really catch up. And I really liked that quality time. This is what inspired my book — to bring people back to the core of life — the home.”
Her book infuses her life’s best experiences in the hopes of helping others create their own feast at home, “I love to travel and for me, my book couldn’t just be a recipe book or a plain old cook book.”
The multi-hyphenated Filipina wanted to fuse her love for travel, food, wine, and her passion for words into a book that people can learn from and recreate in their home.
“I love to read, I love to write, I love learning about people, culture, history and a lot of that was tied into my past travels and all of these memories translated into food. It all ties together. Even my show, ‘Modern Living’ which exposed me to the world of interiors and allowed me to explore that also contributes to the book,” she says.
Stephanie took all of her life’s greatest lessons and poured it into her book in the hopes of elevating experiences in the home. She believes that one does not have to go far to create moments that are truly worthwhile, in fact, it can all happen at home.
For more on Stephanie and her book, visit www.stephaniezubiri.com.
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