We started as a group of mamas cooking, working and loving time in our kitchens and sharing ideas with friends. Then about three years passed, and things changed a bit, people moved, life changes - like kids graduating demanded, and we all got busy. Vicki decided to keep going.
That's me. I started cooking when I was about 12. I'm a bit older now. And, I haven't fallen lost enthusiasm. At. All. In fact, I find I'm more inquisitive, more apt to explore now than then. Though, my first real kitchen foray was a warm chicken salad recipe I found in a SELF magazine. I measure. I take heed when a recipe says things like: exactly. Then I play.
I'm still working with a single oven O'Keefe and Merrit (its love.) But things have changed in my approach. Staples like sugar and flour have moved to the occasional list. Fresh veggies and grass-fed meats are in the center every day (oh, and eggs because they are perfection in a shell).
I see cooking the way I do art and jazz. You keep doing it until you quit thinking so hard.
Try a recipe. Grab some inspiration or throw a challenge.
Here are our original bios:
Jemma - mom, artist, runner, open to all things new, including ideas for improving and refining life, confirmed snacker, seeker of beauty, always brings flowers for the hostess and lives in the SoCal suburbs. She owns CReATE STUDIO (where we all need to go make something).
Tips, Kid food.
blog: CReATE STUDIO
Joan - Mom, Irish girl, tea drinker, animal lover, friend, film production, contagious laugh, reduces, recycles and does it all naturally, (much recycling ends up at CReATE STUDIO). Couldn't have a meal without bread until she decided not to eat bread. Lives in Topanga Canyon. Famous for lamb stew.
Organic shopping and cooking, recipes.
Kerry - mama, wife, teacher, loves to read, read, read and knit, knit, knit, loves to cook (except for a couple of weeks out of the year and Thursday nights), lives in snowy Minnesota.
Menu planning, recipes, CSAs, local and seasonal eating.
blog: Young Ones
Mary - Wife, mama, friend, Art Director. Loves watercolor painting, writing, deep conversations.... Lives in NW Iowa. Weekend breakfast, quick nutritious weeknight meals, simple living, home-grown meals and farmers' market finds.
Blog: http://liveintobeauty.com/
Vicki - wife, mom, reader, writer, editor, UCLA trained, professional chef experience, burns cookies, good at sharing, likes naps and cilantro, enjoys complex and really enjoys simple, lives in the Southern California suburbs a couple of miles from the ocean.
Menu plans, recipes, ideas.
blog: Birds and Seashells
