WHERE IT BEGAN

Growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s was the best!  Like most families around me, our house and our belongings were simple.  I grew up on a farm in Upstate New York and found out later in life that our house (which my mother still lives in) was built in 1780.  As a kid and all through my younger life, I never viewed people as rich or poor.  Like most of the farm kids around, I had acres and acres of fields to play in.  We all had clothes, homes, food on the table and most of us went to the same school.  Life was simple and fabulous!  One phone hung on the kitchen wall and a console TV sat in the living room.  No cell phone and no Internet meant that things like rides from sports practice or trips to the mall had to be planned out.   Things you learned and knew were acquired by talking to your parents, your teachers, or listening to your elders.  The basic things in life, I took for granted.  It wasn’t until many years and many cities away from the farm, I learned that not everyone had the same foundation.   My childhood was far from traditional at the time as my parents divorced when I was young but fortunately I was able to live with my father in my teen years.  It was my time with my father and stepmother that helped me look back at the parts of myself that I had inherited from those before me.  My mother’s mother had been a hard-woking telephone operator who also was a fabulous cook, a spotless housekeeper, and an exceptional seamstress.  My father’s father had been the son of a Polish blacksmith and was an exceptional carpenter.  Dad’s mother was a hard-working farmer, gardener and the stern but loving voice of reason in his family.   My father was a thinker and a politician.  He was smart and kind.  He never treated anyone he met as less than his equal and for that reason he was loved by many.  On top of the list of others who crafted me was my neighbor and my father’s childhood friend, Rosemary, who taught me the beauty of being a homemaker long after my grandmother was gone.   I will most likely look back to what I have learned from all of my early influences in future posts here.  

Though my life could have gone in many different directions, and well, it did take many twists and turns, I was fortunate to have learned the basics.  You know, cooking, cleaning, earning a living.  I would probably be better off financially, had I finished college the first time around and married well.   While neither of those two things happened,  I was able to spend about the first 20 years after college working in restaurants where I fell completely in love with food.  None of the fine cooking, serving, tasting and sipping I did back then was at all focused around nutrition.  It was universally known that Meat potatoes, vegetables, and milk (or alcohol) go together.  Into my thirties and even my forties, I never once stopped to think about how much sugar I had consumed over the course of my lifetime just in breakfast cereals or how many  McDonald’s meals I would have been better off without.  The mother in me thankfully always chose healthy food that was within budget for my kids, but I felt healthy and resilient.  It wasn’t until my daughter, who was born when I was forty became an aerial dancer and later a gym fanatic that I started to really evaluate my own health and nutrition.  It was then that I became more and more aware of not only what I am eating but equally important what I am not eating.   For a short time I explored supplements as the answer to good health.  Then I realized that it is much more than just taking supplements.   Avoiding toxins in food and the environment is huge!  I never realized how huge avoiding poison was to achieving good health.  As I studied things like detoxing my liver and the difference between nutrient rich foods and just “food”  the light came on in my head brighter than ever!  Sixty years ago my grandparents didn’t need to worry so much about this toxic dilemma because they raised a great deal of what they ate.  Holy Cow have things changed since the days of dairy farm life!

For me, eating and just living healthier is pretty easy.  It’s mostly been a matter of rationing portions, and including even more of the things I already love in my cooking.  Well, then there are things like ditching the alcohol and limiting butter piles of cheese on everything!  The latter are my problem areas.  It occurred to me along the way that especially for younger people eating healthy may be more of a challenge.  My own daughter only recently has shown any interest at all in cooking her own meals (surely my fault for being too available)   . The reality today sadly is that for whatever the reason, many parents do not cook meals for their families and don’t even teach their kids the basics of cooking or preparing meals for themselves.  I took to the Internet for some insight into this.  Though I am not a big supporter of letting apps guide me, I did find this read by Lark whose mission is to encourage diabetics and others to cook for themselves in an effort to improve their health.  Similar to Lark, my mission here will be to encourage and promote food and lifestyle for healthier living by way of cooking, exercise, fresh air and sunshine, and eco-friendly practices.  

Finally, check our one of my favorite classic YouTube videos that confirms one of my greatest fears of young Americans today!  Cooking ain’t that bad kids!  Stick around and I’ll show you how.