My Beginnings

I grew up eating meat, potatoes and vegetable for the most part.  Our family would have Chinese food from the local take out place once a year and pizza on the odd occasion.  Sometimes there were spaghetti dinners or casseroles.  There was no spice in our life and all veggies were cooked to death.  But my parents did do their own canning, pickling, blanched and froze vegetables that were in season.  Plus they made their own jam, maple syrup, bread and plenty of cookies.  At the time I didn't really appreciate all of the hard work and I would have done anything for some 'Wonder Bread' and an 'Oreo'. 

My Dad had a set of cook books that he would break out on occasion. My sisters and I would run screaming in terror at the sight of them because it meant something new and 'exotic'.  My poor Father couldn't even try to make anything creative without a chorus of 'OH NOOOO!'.  That of course has come back to bite me with my 3 kids.  Even though they have dinned from a wider range of food than I ever did. When they were little (some of them still are) they would turn their nose up at anything new.  At least they don't run screaming.  Sorry Dad.

When I moved out to attend university I lived off rice, pasta, eggs and 'Mr. Noodles' (I could buy them 4 for $1).  Certainly nothing fancy for those 4 years.  It was about sustaining myself cheaply not cooking with passion, although I would make spaghetti carbonara on occasion as taught to me by a guy I met from Italy. 

After getting married I started cooking a wider range of food.  Mostly Italian pasta and meat dishes.  I would experiment with the odd recipe out of a magazine or the newspaper but I really wasn't making anything spectacular.  Then it happened.  That EUREKA moment.  We had moved to Australia and I had access to so much fresh produce and seafood.  I was introduced to a more European style of shopping ... daily.  There were bakeries, fish mongers, green groceries, butchers and bottle shops all within walking distance of my home.  I also discovered TV chefs, on the all night food channel after I had my 3rd child.  They made everything look so easy.  So I bought a cook book and started to cook.  Anything and everything.

Spicy Things, New Things, Crazy Things and I found out I had a real flare for it.  My love for great food had began and well ... I wanted to share it.