:: about me ::

So who am I? A good question. For now I'm a SAH mom of four who over the last twelve years has taught herself many kitchen techniques with which I feed my family. 

But it's so much more than that. I have a passion for tasty food with strong flavors and many dimensions. While feeding my family is how I honed these skills, it also embodies what food is for me. 

Food is not just fuel. Sometimes I suppose a given meal is just fuel, but each meal is the opportunity for a food story, or in other words an edible hug. As a wise man once said, "Love is the best sauce" (Alton Brown on Feasting on Waves). If I've taken the time to come up with my own recipe for dinner, creating and tasting, and tasting and creating, how much more love is shown than warming up something that Tyson magic-created in a scary factory far away. That being said we do eat take-home food once in a while; when you have four kids cooking is not always idyllic. Even then, my goal is to get nourishment in my family's bodies that will show them why I do what I do.

Finding the best ingredients certainly earns me the label picky. And others might call me a food snob. But just sit and let me feed you once, then you will come to appreciate the passionate attention to detail. You'll surely come back again.

Yes, I'm into the whole organic scene, but sometimes would choose local over organic. Honestly I desire to get as much food from local sources as possible, even if it means having to grow it myself. I do quite a bit of vegetable gardening, along with participating in a local organic CSA. Happiest months of the year for me are May-October when I pick up my weekly bounty from Tantre Farm at the Ann Arbor farmers' market. A farmers' market will be my heaven.

Also I have a real interest in food photography. With a macro lens I bought myself recently and a Nikon D80, I've really been able to get some great shots, emphasizing the textures within depths of fields that we might otherwise quickly chew and swallow.

One day when I'm done with the baby/toddler part of my child-rearing, I hope to use this passion for something professional. Culinary school, photography degree, catering business, opening a small gourmet food shop. We'll see...