I didn’t really discover flavorful food until my college days.  That’s when I first tried Japanese food, Indian food, bistro cuisine from a hip restaurant in a foodie neighborhood…you get the picture.  Slowly, over the years, I have graduated to a pretty serious foodie, but one whose repertoire of ingredients has become limited (with a few exceptions — see below) as a result of marrying a kosher-style husband and having a food allergic child.

Looking back, every aspect of my post-graduate school life has been infused with food.  I started off with an old GE push button stove and by calling my mother to ask her what to do with a fresh head of garlic (I didn’t know that the cloves needed peeling!).  Then, I moved on to a slightly (emphasis on slightly) better electric stove, with an oven that required five hours to roast a chicken!  My third kitchen had yet another push button GE stove, and of course no dishwasher.

It was not until I redesigned the first kitchen that I owned with my now husband that I actually had a dishwasher (!) and a reasonably sharp kitchen knife that chopped food the way that food is supposed to be chopped.  Now, I have a professional gas (hooray!) cooktop and oven, and more than one decent knife.

My courtship with my husband usually involved food…long dinners out with wonderful conversation, cozy New England winter nights sampling red wine and the stinkiest cheese he could persuade me to eat, a trip to CA wine country when I discovered I have an extraordinary ability to tell you whether wine will taste good and its primary components based on one sniff.  And one day, after four years of wondering whether my true love would ever propose, he finally did…but only after tasting some of my homemade spaghetti sauce!  One taste of that, and he popped the question.  And I traded my love of shellfish (he was kosher style) for my true love!  (Although I can’t resist eating a lobster roll on my almost-once a year pilgrimage to the Love Nest in Five Islands, ME!).  Now, my husband looks almost gleeful everytime I break out the Kitchenaid mixer that we received as a wedding gift!

My husband and I are lactose intolerant, but food allergies were uncharted territory for us until our first child was born.  So I became a Whole Foods customer, began frequenting our local seasonal farmers’ market, and began to cook and bake food that we all could eat.  Now, with a professional gas stove and cooktop, a reasonable set of kitchen knives, and a family to feed, I find cooking and baking to be a creative outlet that satisfies me and my family.

So here I am.  I am on hiatus from my career outside of the house, and I am a full-time Mom with a very hungry family that cannot eat out or take-in much anymore!