If You Want to Know More …

If you love eating and reading, consider yourself at home. You’ll find recipes that range from seasonal and simple to those celebrating the intricacies of food chemistry and various cultures. Food strengthens bonds with friends and family and forms bridges with foes. Our DNA compels us to find it for our survival, but in our souls, we know it’s more.

Going against all blogging advice, my food niche is “expansive curiosity”.

I know. That sounds like not a niche.

You cannot be handcuffed when it comes to food.

We’ll explore some trends, and most of the recipes use ingredients produced by mother earth.

As a nurse anesthetist, I’ve seen thousands of operations: You are what you eat. It’s just that simple.

Eat a steak and a loaded baked potato before you eat sour cream and onion flavored chip or drink another protein shake.

I love aprons
Cooking Christmas Dinner for my crew.

You’ll also enjoy short essays.

What eating is to the mouth, belly, and eyes, words are to the soul, the brain, and the heart. The Great American Novel isn’t in me waiting to get out, but condensed snippets of sage advice, honed by experience and marinated in a love of words … You’re in the right place for that.

Think of me as a guide. I have credentials.

  1. A lifetime spent locked in operating rooms filled with dominant personalities.
  2. A fair amount of travel, as a tourist, a medical missionary, and growing up an Army Brat.
  3. Served 12 years in the Army.
  4. We (I) successfully launched 2 millennials.
  5. Been married forever (still in love).
  6. I’m in the first generation of women after the bra-burners – it never occurred to me to not work, and it never occurred to me there would be a thing called “The Mommy Wars.” That blindness turned out to be one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.

What’s with the name?

I had a great mom. Culinarily speaking, her skills were … interestingly diverse. She could single-handedly prepare a 5-course sit-down dinner for 12, (crisp, pressed linens, 5 plates, 3 glasses, 8 pieces of silverware per seat), and she could throw an open house people talked about for weeks, but she would not cook a pork chop without ruining it. She grew up in a time when you could get trichinosis from undercooked pork and she was not about to poison her family. To her, those burned chops were both love and culinary know-how.

The name is a nod to her; what we see depends on what we’re looking for, and it’s a reminder to embrace failure as a prerequisite for success.

I’d love for you to subscribe and follow along.

Let me know what you think, what you’d like to cook, or what you’d like to read about.

J