Food Background

I’ve always loved food – as long as I can remember food has been a central part of my life. I was, and still am, lucky enough to be surrounded by fabulous cooks. I can’t remember a time where a frozen meal was a staple of my dinner table – we always had homemade soups, stroganoffs, stews, cookies, brownies, cakes, pies…oh, the list could go on and on.

My grandmother was an amazing baker. My fondest memories of her involve her homemade meringues, hot fudge sauces, whoopie pies, raspberry turnovers, and fruit pies. (Though she didn’t ALWAYS make all of those herself…but we still had ‘em!)

My Mimi was an amazing cook. She made simple meals wonderful. She influenced my mother’s cooking so much, and I am so lucky for that.

My mom is probably my biggest influence when it comes to food (and well, many other things in life). She is an amazing cook, and yet she is so unaware of it. I know that partially part of the reason all of her food is so amazing is because she makes it with love (cheesy but true)…and that is such a central thing surrounding food in my life. My mom is the QUEEN of soups…as long as I can remember she’s been making her own broths and soups from just about everything…and I’ve never had a bad batch! She was ahead of her time, making “fried chicken” – coating chicken breasts in corn flakes and baking them in the oven, pizza from scratch and the best spinach pie…ever. She makes the best porcupine meatballs, and her beef stroganoff is to.die.for.

My mom’s passion for food has definitely carried over into me, and into my brother as well (he’s quite the cook!). When I was little, I used to host my own cook shows (imitating the likes of Julia Child and the Frugal Gourmet with Jeff Smith). That was loooong before the Food Network was even a concept. haha I can vividly remember staring at my reflection in the stove door and pretending I was talking to a camera/audience while I was making chocolate chip cookies. I’m sure my mom was laughing in the next room…I mean seriously…what normal kid does this? haha

Anyway, the love of food has stayed with me. Many years later, here I am blogging about food! I still have an intense love of sweets (thanks to Grammy), a love of simplicity (thanks to Mimi) and a general love of GOOD, REAL food (thanks to Mom).