Why I Consider Myself a Foodie and Why you Should Read my Blog.

I come from a long line of great cooks. These cooks were great women who were brave enough not to measure out ingredients from their Gumbo to their German Chocolate Cakes. These women, my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother, tried to teach me how to cook at a young age with patience, sincerity, and most of all, care. Thought I barely knew my great-grandmother, I grew up with stories about her amazing Cajun cuisine that she would make from almost nothing. My grandmother could bake cakes and pies like a professional pastry chef. My mother’s dinners are what brought all of our friends to our house every Sunday night. But, instead of learning how to cook from these three, talents women, what did I do? Nothing. I just ate the food, and washed the dishes. I took no interest in cooking at all.

By the time I graduated college, all I could make in the kitchen was a few sandwiches, pasta with melted cheese, and eggs. Pretty shameful since my Cajun great-grandmother could make dirty rice, a cake, and knit a sweater in the time it would take me to watch a Lifetime movie.

What’s worse: I spent my college years in New Orleans, a town known for it’s great food and drink. So, when I moved to Austin, TX and I was out on my own again, I figured I would try a thing or two in the kitchen to see what would happen. Sure I made messes, overcooked things, and maybe set my stove on fire once or twice, but the more I cooked and read about cooking, the more I wanted to create yummy, healthy meals in the kitchen.

Long gone are the days of melted cheese pasta bowls in the microwave. I’m happy to whip up a batch of baked macaroni and cheese, baked ziti with grilled eggplant and zucchini, fried green tomatoes, pan seared salmon with ginger and garlic, baked apples and pears in a red wine, honey reduction….ok you get the picture.

So, after spending some time in the kitchen pleasing my friends’ bellies with tasty, and often vegetarian treats (I’ve been a vegetarian for 7 years), I decided to combine my talents in the kitchen with my talents in writing and viola! I present to you my foodie blog. Here I will post good, fast and healthy recipes, family traditions, restaurant reviews from all over the country (I travel a lot), and beer and wine suggestions. I figure us twenty-somethings should learn a thing or two about food before hitting our thirties when picking out a nice bottle of wine is expected.

More to follow!