Fast forward to my college years, after my palate finally became more refined and I actually started eating and enjoying all kinds of vegetables. My college roommate Stephanie and I started cooking up food in our dorm room together. Illegally using our toaster oven and hot plate, we made what seemed to be gourmet meals, compared to the crap they were serving up downstairs. When we moved into our apartment the next year, we really started experimenting. She had the advantage of being Greek and Italian and I was highly motivated to eat healthy and find as many good recipes as possible. We made significant efforts to cook and eat well, as much as possible.
After college, being single and a workaholic, I slacked off in my efforts to cook and eat healthy all of the time. It is so challenging to shop and cook for one, and not waste food! I still enjoyed cooking, but I didn't make as much effort, since I was rarely home. Working so much did put a few extra bucks in my pockets, so I spent it eating out at many of the wonderful restaurants in my area. No fast food. I ate pretty well, but looking back I cringe at how much money I wasted!
Finally, after a couple of years of eating out way too much, a little cooking competition between friends sparked my interest and LOVE for cooking again, in a whole new way. It started as a small Lasagna cook-off, between 3. After a a few more friends got involved, it became a competition between 6 Lasagnas. Sadly, I did not win, but the instigator of the event announced that it was the first of many more Cook-Offs. We would have a second competition next month, Chicken would be the theme and whoever wins, hosts the next one & decides on the theme. It was exciting! The competitions got more intense, with the # of entries growing at each event. There would be so much food, you could hardly try it all to vote on it! I would put a lot of planning and effort into my dishes and although the competition part was fun, it was being with friends that brought me the most joy. It was shortly after I met my boyfriend Nate that we had the Hawaiian Luau Cook-Off. It was our first competition together, a joint effort which won us the cup for our "Aloha Chicken Luau." We took an internet recipe and added our own personal touches which made the dish come together, with distinction. We hosted the next event at my house, a Latin food theme and won again with Nate's "Jade Shrimp" tacos, with my homemade salsa and guac. Hosting again, we chose "A family recipe" as the theme. To my surprise, I won with my Great Grandmother's Chocolate pudding pie. We smoked 3 different Cook-Offs and had fallen in love in the process.
Our first Cook-Off win.
Announcing our win for the Latin Cook-Off.
I swear, we didn't count the votes!
Great Grandma Bryant's Chocolate Pie. The meringue was a flop, but still a hit!
Meeting Nate made a difference in my life in so many ways. As my relationship with him grew, so did my relationship with food. Cooking became our courtship. We did not live together yet, but we planned meals, went to the store and cooked together, even after our very long, 12+ hour work days. When we moved to Asheville together, we became very excited about how our new home town would allow us to eat what we really want to eat... Fresh, healthy, local, organic-as-much-as-possible, in-season food. It is so readily available, less than a mile from our home, we have the WNC Farmer's market and within 5 minutes, our favorite grocery, Earthfare. We grow our own food, from spring until winter and even try to keep the greens going through the winter. It is so easy to eat well, in fact it's what we indulge in more than anything. It has been a financial struggle, starting over in a new town, but through it all, no matter what, we eat VERY well.
I am proud of the food that Nate and I create together. We make beautiful, delicious and interesting dishes together and for each other. In our moments of pride, we like to photograph our creations. We didn't know what to do with all of these random photos we have of food. We would often send the pics to a chef friend to see if we could impress. The quality of the images was never that great, but we are still often compelled to photograph our food. I decided that we needed an outlet for these photos. All I seemed to photograph anymore was our cat and our food and I started to wonder what I should do with these pics. The kitty is probably not as interesting to others as she is to us, but the food... that is definitely relate-able. Nate's mom often asks about what we are having for dinner and it becomes a drawn out conversation, noting every special detail of our ingredients and what impressive meal we had the night before too. I started thinking about this and with the photos, I felt I might have something that could be interesting and fun to share.
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