The Girl Behind The Food:

2007-08-04T15:56:00.001-07:00

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."- Virginia Woolf

(Sampling Paella in Spain)

Let me be a bit of a sap for a moment and tell you all about my philosophy of life. I am a realist, intensely critical, cynical, sometimes even bitter but beneath all that I am a horrible, shameless, soggy romantic. I think basically that people are insane but they have the capacity to create, and that my friend is where all the beauty is found.

I am not saying that nature isn't wonderful, no. A perfectly ripe, tangy-sweet grapefruit simply cannot be improved upon, but beauty for me, at least where people are involved, is in the act of creation. Creating imaginative literature, a wild business plan, the different, ingenious ways people come up with to live their lives be it in law, love or what they stuff in their faces, that to me is important.

I told you I would give you a little insight into who I am so I suppose I ought to go into some of the biographical information that will let you know where I come from, and thus how I cook. People, after all, cook what they know.

I grew up on a small island in the Puget Sound, called Vashon. My graduating class was around 80 kids if that gives you an idea. The place is a little liberal hippy place, safe and secluded but near enough to a big city (15 minutes from Seattle by boat) that the people are also educated, and can go off to the opera, pikes place market or university if they so choose.

So after highschool I went off to Paris for a year, my host family cooked so abysmally that I had to run off to markets, little cafes and excursions with friends to experience some real French cooking. I stayed in Brittany, Normandy, Alsace, Biscarrosse, Nimes, Marseilles, and much more, and each region added to my awe and wonder at the power of people to make truly amazing dishes.

(A friend and I at the Sacre Coeur)

I have spent much time in England, some in London, though mostly in little towns Wales and Shropshire, by Grandmother is an amazing cook and most of my mums comfort foods tend to stem from typical British dishes. It annoys me more than anything else when people say that Brits cannot cook. That is insane. There is no such thing as a country that can't cook just stupid tourists that don't know where to go... but I digress. (A small note though, if you want good food go to Ludlow, it has some of the best, and while you are there stop at DeGray's- and if you have time go in Hay-on-Wye for some amazing bookshops).

After living in France and a brief stint back in the States to earn my degree in Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington, I moved to Corrientes, Argentina (where the first year of my blogging begins). I traveled to Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile & Peru during the 2 1/2 some years in total that I spent living in South America, and through small sections of Argentina itself (though only from Buenos Aires up). So, needless to say my cooking style is a bit of a mix, on my recipe page I make a very lousy attempt at letting you know where my recipes stem from, but if you have questions please let me know.

At the moment I am a law student at the University of Washington, and spend my time cooking and reading cases in my little Wallingford house where I live with my also-law-student boyfriend/dishwasher/recipe tester, Kyle. I have worked in immigration law before, and am doing so this summer, but my dream is to go into family law, because it is the pivotal point in people's lives. They have just lost something big, and are going through many emotional as well as legal issues, and I feel like it is the area where I can do the most good. I like the hands-on lots of client contact of the area, being a people person myself, and it is what touches closest the lives of people in law; it is their family, their kids, their homes, their assets.

(On the steps of Machu Pitchu, in Peru)

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The Girl Behind The Food: