It took me some time to discover my passion for cooking (my mother is still surprised… I used to burn a lot of cookies as a kid), but now I’m obsessed with it. I haven’t honed the technical skills of a chef, but I enjoy reading cooking magazines from cover to cover, perusing recipes online, experimenting in my kitchen, and sharing my successful (and sometimes not so successful) dishes with my friends and family.

I grew up on a farm in northwestern Minnesota, attended school in Minneapolis, and moved to Seattle, Washington in the winter of 2004. Six months into my grown-up Seattleite life I decided I was done with frozen pizza and ramen noodles and began to dabble in cooking with fresh vegetables, meats, and seafood. A timid cook, I kept things simple, looking for recipes with five ingredients or less. That was then and this is now.

Loving Local Food is my continued quest to discover new culinary techniques, savor my homemade creations, sample delectable dishes from local chefs, and pair it all with the perfect wine. I believe in the local food movement and do my best to choose ingredients as close to home as I can find them; but local means much more to me than that. Local is what makes a region unique; makes my neighborhood shine; and most important to me, local is my kitchen and the culinary adventures I discover there.

To complement Loving Local Food, my better half makes frequent posts on www.lovinglocalwine.com. Check it out!