Welcome to my blog! I hope to use this space to talk about recipes and cooking tips and to share my opinions and thoughts about various topics. I do not claim to be an expert in anything but I do have a passion about food and fitness, so much of what I write will relate to those subjects.
My love of cooking came around 30 years ago when I got my first restaurant job (I will save you the math, I am 48). I grew up with a mother who loved to cook and always had a delicious homemade meal on the table each night. Like all good daughters I declared I did not want to be anything like my mom so I decided I would not cook at all! My first apartment had a stove that I had to dust because it never got used. Then I got a job working at Perkins (remember those all night diners?) to help pay for my grad school and I watched the cooks throw things together and realized it didn’t look that complicated. As Emeril likes to declare “it ain’t rocket science”. That job led to another, this time at an Italian restaurant. I worked my way up from hosting to general managing and realized I wanted to know how to do each job so I could be an effective manager. So I trained in the kitchen and learned what an intoxicating feeling it is to take a bunch of separate ingredients and make them into a delicious meal that people want to eat.
Sometime before this happened I became a vegetarian. While this limited what I was willing to eat, it did not limit my cooking at the restaurant. I realize that the food we choose to eat is a personal choice and what is right for me is not right for everyone. I do not intend to turn anyone into a vegetarian just as I do not expect a carnivore to try to convince me to eat meat. The recipes and cooking topics I will talk about will revolve around vegetarianism but I hope they will be of use to everyone reading.
The fitness aspect comes in because I love to eat! I started working out in my twenties because my metabolism came to a screeching halt when I reached 25 and I did not like having to buy bigger clothes. Unfortunately over the next 20 years my work outs did not equal what I was eating and the weight crept on. So about two years ago I set out on a mission to ramp up my exercise level and try to burn more calories than I took in. The scale this morning showed I have dropped 25+ pounds and I immediately had an apple to celebrate! (The chocolate will come later). I will be writing about my efforts to find the right balance between food and fitness and I hope to provide some encouragement and ideas for anyone else who is trying to find that equilibrium as well.
Welcome!