...well, it started with a botched attempt at baking a loaf of bread. or maybe it started on that fateful christmas morning one year when my mom gave me a Wilton Cake Decorating book along with a 29-piece set of pastry nozzles and an apron.
...no, actually, it probably started many, many years ago when i was a little girl living in Sri Lanka. after a long day at school my siblings and i were often rewarded with an exciting trip to the Fab, a chain of pastry shops that serves up delectable treats like chocolate eclairs, cream puffs and, my personal favourite, ribbon cake - layers of thin, pastel coloured butter cake, sandwiched and covered with an almost too-sweet frosting. it pairs excellently with a cup of good Ceylon tea and, to this day, i jump at any chance i get to eat a piece of this multicoloured confection (these chances are quite rare as the Fab is located in Sri Lanka and i am located somwehere else). yes, that was when it started, my love affair with baking. i knew that i couldn't depend on my parents' sympathy every time i wanted a piece of ribbon cake. i knew that if i wanted my ribbon cake wherever and whenever i wanted it, i would have to learn to make it myself.
so i began baking, and i soon realized just how much i love food and just how much i love to cook. it started with cakes and pies but these days i have a variety of shari specialties ranging from my rich chocolate-brown date and nut loaf to my lemony herb roasted potatoes with garlic. i am a self-taught chef - i have no fancy degrees from La Varrene or Le Cordon Bleu or Johnson and Wales. ok, i do have a certificate of completion for level 1 of the Wilton Cake Decorating Course (thank you, thank you). but seriously, i've learned what i know about food from my adoring mother and from reading. i spend hours searching, scouring books and magazines, newspapers and websites, looking for anything related to food - recipes, techniques, ingredients, methods. a few years ago i started baking cakes for my family and friends for birthdays, wedding showers, baby showers or just because. my true love is baking but i love cooking just about anything from roasted butternut squash soup to flourless almond-clementine cake to salmon with yogurt and dill to cardamom scented chocolate dipped butter cookies. for me, nothing beats the pleasure i get from creating food, from watching plain ingredients melt together from a mess of different textures and colours into one delicious and beautiful dish. i love the ease with which butter and sugar cream together to form the basis of a tender cookie and i thoroughly enjoy the gentle resistance that results from kneading a soft bread dough for a few minutes. yes, nothing beats simple pleasures like these. except for maybe the happiness i feel when people enjoy eating the fruits of my labour. and nothing in the world makes me happier than being able to cook for the people that i love.
now, in real life, i am a crusader against hunger in the developing world. my studies in international development and public health have brought me to my current job as a researcher at McMaster University. as i move forward with my career, i hope to find my place in emergency nutritition and micronutrient supplementation to promote adequate nutrition in developing countries. my dream is, quite literally, to feed people (mostly babies) that are hungry in countries and regions where malnutrition is rampant. there are hundreds of millions of people that are severely undernourrished and i believe that it is my duty to help feed them - but, that whole part of my life deserves its own blog. this blog is about my dream to feed people that are hungry here in lovely ontario (and sometimes massachusetts). i just think it's funny that no matter where i go or what i do, my desire to feed people is always there.
after i completed grad school last summer, there was a good 4 month period when i was just unemployed with basically nothing to do. to fill my days i would either go to bookstores or dig through old boxes in my house to find food magazines and books. and then i would just read and copy recipes and memorize pictures and images. i would become filled with excitement and happiness as i eagerly planned out which dishes i would make and which ingredients i would experiment with. hours would just fly by. that's what really solidified what i already knew - that i am a chef at heart; i am not just someone who loves to cook. i am not a 'foodie.' this is something serious for me. amidst the scary reality of unemployment and fading dreams, not to mention the ever growing pile of loan debt, i found comfort and solace within the pages of those books and that carried me through those months of uncertainty.
sometimes i think that i should be like Anna Olson. she says that she knew it was time to quit her 'real' job as an accountant on Bay Street and to become a chef when one night she found herself baking away her sorrows after a long day at the office. i often wonder i should just give up my crusade and give into my love affair and set up shop in a little bakery somewhere instead of trying to fight the system and the politics that engulf the world of international health. wouldn't life be so much easier? the only problem is that i really want to feed the babies. i just can't help it. there is too much work to be done in the world for me to devote all of my energy to my passion for food.
so, when i'm finished ending world hunger, i will open a pastry shop in the south of France with my good friend Daniel (he knows about this plan; we've discussed it in detail). for now, i will get my food fix by keeping this blog and sharing with you (thank you for reading!!) my daily, weekly or monthly foodie (i hate that term - chefie, cookie??) ramblings. bon appetit :o)
...no, actually, it probably started many, many years ago when i was a little girl living in Sri Lanka. after a long day at school my siblings and i were often rewarded with an exciting trip to the Fab, a chain of pastry shops that serves up delectable treats like chocolate eclairs, cream puffs and, my personal favourite, ribbon cake - layers of thin, pastel coloured butter cake, sandwiched and covered with an almost too-sweet frosting. it pairs excellently with a cup of good Ceylon tea and, to this day, i jump at any chance i get to eat a piece of this multicoloured confection (these chances are quite rare as the Fab is located in Sri Lanka and i am located somwehere else). yes, that was when it started, my love affair with baking. i knew that i couldn't depend on my parents' sympathy every time i wanted a piece of ribbon cake. i knew that if i wanted my ribbon cake wherever and whenever i wanted it, i would have to learn to make it myself.
so i began baking, and i soon realized just how much i love food and just how much i love to cook. it started with cakes and pies but these days i have a variety of shari specialties ranging from my rich chocolate-brown date and nut loaf to my lemony herb roasted potatoes with garlic. i am a self-taught chef - i have no fancy degrees from La Varrene or Le Cordon Bleu or Johnson and Wales. ok, i do have a certificate of completion for level 1 of the Wilton Cake Decorating Course (thank you, thank you). but seriously, i've learned what i know about food from my adoring mother and from reading. i spend hours searching, scouring books and magazines, newspapers and websites, looking for anything related to food - recipes, techniques, ingredients, methods. a few years ago i started baking cakes for my family and friends for birthdays, wedding showers, baby showers or just because. my true love is baking but i love cooking just about anything from roasted butternut squash soup to flourless almond-clementine cake to salmon with yogurt and dill to cardamom scented chocolate dipped butter cookies. for me, nothing beats the pleasure i get from creating food, from watching plain ingredients melt together from a mess of different textures and colours into one delicious and beautiful dish. i love the ease with which butter and sugar cream together to form the basis of a tender cookie and i thoroughly enjoy the gentle resistance that results from kneading a soft bread dough for a few minutes. yes, nothing beats simple pleasures like these. except for maybe the happiness i feel when people enjoy eating the fruits of my labour. and nothing in the world makes me happier than being able to cook for the people that i love.
now, in real life, i am a crusader against hunger in the developing world. my studies in international development and public health have brought me to my current job as a researcher at McMaster University. as i move forward with my career, i hope to find my place in emergency nutritition and micronutrient supplementation to promote adequate nutrition in developing countries. my dream is, quite literally, to feed people (mostly babies) that are hungry in countries and regions where malnutrition is rampant. there are hundreds of millions of people that are severely undernourrished and i believe that it is my duty to help feed them - but, that whole part of my life deserves its own blog. this blog is about my dream to feed people that are hungry here in lovely ontario (and sometimes massachusetts). i just think it's funny that no matter where i go or what i do, my desire to feed people is always there.
after i completed grad school last summer, there was a good 4 month period when i was just unemployed with basically nothing to do. to fill my days i would either go to bookstores or dig through old boxes in my house to find food magazines and books. and then i would just read and copy recipes and memorize pictures and images. i would become filled with excitement and happiness as i eagerly planned out which dishes i would make and which ingredients i would experiment with. hours would just fly by. that's what really solidified what i already knew - that i am a chef at heart; i am not just someone who loves to cook. i am not a 'foodie.' this is something serious for me. amidst the scary reality of unemployment and fading dreams, not to mention the ever growing pile of loan debt, i found comfort and solace within the pages of those books and that carried me through those months of uncertainty.
sometimes i think that i should be like Anna Olson. she says that she knew it was time to quit her 'real' job as an accountant on Bay Street and to become a chef when one night she found herself baking away her sorrows after a long day at the office. i often wonder i should just give up my crusade and give into my love affair and set up shop in a little bakery somewhere instead of trying to fight the system and the politics that engulf the world of international health. wouldn't life be so much easier? the only problem is that i really want to feed the babies. i just can't help it. there is too much work to be done in the world for me to devote all of my energy to my passion for food.
so, when i'm finished ending world hunger, i will open a pastry shop in the south of France with my good friend Daniel (he knows about this plan; we've discussed it in detail). for now, i will get my food fix by keeping this blog and sharing with you (thank you for reading!!) my daily, weekly or monthly foodie (i hate that term - chefie, cookie??) ramblings. bon appetit :o)
