Well hello there!

The blogosphere has been calling me for some time now. Simply put, I need a way to confer my love of cooking and my passion obsession over clean eating. I think about the food we eat, where it comes from, how it impacts our planet, how it impacts our bodies, how it tastes, how it smells and how to properly prepare it all.the.time.  If I have 10 free minutes to myself, you'll find me searching the web for the instinctual nutritional knowledge we held near and dear to our hearts in yesteryear. I'll research cooking methods, obscure ingredients and new recipes. One of my husband's greatest pet-peeves is that I almost never make the same dish twice.

I believe we should cook like our foremothers and forefathers did in the mid-century. I find this believe ironic because I learned how to cook from my Nana, a strong, lean German woman whose passion for real food and cooking makes mine pale in comparison. Nana and Pop-Pop (a hearty, stout Norwegian whose passion for eating made them the perfect couple) lived at the Jersey Shore. I grew up in Northern Jersey and would only get to see them on the weekends. We'd pull up late on a Friday night and no matter what time it was, she would be at the front door waiting for us. The moment we would walk up the driveway,  she would start flapping her arms a la "Chicken Dance" and she'd say: "Well hello there, hello there, hello there!" She'd then engulf my sister and me in hugs and kisses.

My favorite childhood memories revolve around those visits to my grandparents -- and real food. She introduced me to making jam from the strawberries we'd picked on the farm earlier that morning. She taught me how to can green beans that we would eat later that year. But most importantly, she taught me how to prepare fresh, clean, real food. We would plan the menu, shop for the menu, prepare our dishes and then present our dishes. My grandfather would highly compliment our efforts and thus I also learned about the great pleasure a recipient derives from the cook’s labor of love.

I spent hours upon hours by her side, listening to the stories of her life and learning her best kitchen tips (always add a bay leaf to flour to repel weevils; eggs taste best when prepared in bacon grease). She slowly instilled in me the passion to honor myself and my family through real food. It is with that same passion I approach this blog. And for this very reason, I dedicate my very first blog post to my Nana.

Love and light,
K