I Love Food

May 7

I 💓 Food

Let me start by saying I am NOT a food blogger or a chef but I am a foodie☺ I love gourmet and I love a good hotdog. I love fancy French cheeses and I also love sliced cheese from the deli counter. I love a fancy cocktail that has 10 ingredients and I love a simple glass of wine. I love food trucks and fine dining. I love it all! To me one of the best things about traveling is experiencing new foods, eateries and cuisines. Growing up in a small town in Indiana we didn’t have all the best restaurants or ever eat anywhere too fancy but as I got older and as I grew up and experienced life and really began to travel and try new things my love for food grew. And moving to NYC right out of college was so eye opening for this Indiana girl. I remember my cousin taking me for Cuban food when I first moved to NY and I had no idea what I was eating. Or when my parents came to visit and I had looked in Zagat “where to go to dinner in the theatre district” and found this lovely French restaurant or the first time I had sushi or Indian food and on and on it goes. And now I couldn’t imagine life without these flavors. Growing up I knew Italian and American and not much else.

I come from a family of amazing cooks. My father’s mother was Italian and it didn’t matter if she was making a turkey sandwich or meatballs, everything she made was delicious. My three aunts (and even my dad) are excellent cooks. There is nothing my Aunt Denise (@dlrockwood5) has ever made me that has not been incredible. My aunt Roxanne is a culinary genius with the vegan meals she creates. And my aunt Valerie (@buddypalval) is the best baker around and everything she does is done to perfection. My sweet mom is also an amazing cook and baker although she doesn’t love to cook but give her sugar and butter and watch out! My mom marrying into my dad’s big Italian family was intimidating for her but she quickly learned all the traditional meals my dad grew up eating and I still remember waking up on Sundays to the smell of garlic sautéing on the stove. And my maternal grandmother as well did everything to absolute perfection and her mash potatoes to this day are the best I’ve ever had.

One of my love languages is “acts of service”. And one of the ways I love to serve others is to cook for them. I love to entertain and to make people feel joy and comfort through my food. So, during this shelter in place I have cooked more meals than I ever have in one short period of time. From breakfast to dinner and everything in between I have been cooking it!

To me I think cooking is simply a part of me. A part of my family and a part of my heritage that I treasure and hold so dear. So, when I cook it is something I take very seriously and take great pride in. And it doesn’t matter if I am making lunch for just myself or cooking Christmas Eve dinner….it ALL matters to me! If I bake, I follow a recipe to a T (almost), but when I cook, even if I follow a recipe, I am always making adjustments to it. I often will take a less healthy meal and see how I can reinvent it to be healthier.

For this post I have included some fun photos of me with the food that I love and some are photos from things I have made. I am always happy and willing to share recipes so all you ever have to do is ask and I will pass it along to you. And if you are thinking “I wish I had a recipe for, fill in the blank”, you should ask me and I most likely have a recipe for it. I love to collect recipes, from family recipes to my latest finds on Pinterest. Pinterest and Food Network are where I find 90% of my recipes. And anything Ina Garten does is always a win!

My aunt and godmother (@veginoc) is a wonderful vegan cook as I mentioned above. I get a lot of inspiration from her blog and her recipes. And she has also started an incredible project during this COVID crisis and is creating a cookbook from recipes collected from all the women in our family. When I talked to her today, she was on page 89 and she said she had a way to go! I CANNOT wait to get this little gem! It is going to be such a beautiful item to love and to treasure all my life and hopefully I will one day be able to pass this along.

Bon Appetit! Manga! Camamos! Let’s Eat!

~ Tamara