Moi

Look! It's me! Pic by M.Colaizzi (my daughter)

In February 2010, I had a rather nasty bout with encephalitis; Herpes Simplex Encephalitis, to be exact. My brain was hemorrhaging and my family was told to "make arrangements." Long story short, I made it through. When I was discharged, I was discouraged to drive and encouraged to read and write. 

In addition to my book reading adventures, I cooked. A lot. So much so that I joined the ranks of millions of other humans and started a blog. I am officially a cyber food hipster. Damn. I have become "one of those people." I also said that I'd never dress my dog. 

"Liar."  -Fiddle

I've never been afraid of the kitchen. My mother and sisters are great cooks and we were encouraged to help mom in the kitchen as much as possible. I was a military brat. My family was constantly surrounded by different cultures and flavors. My theatrical background gave me the opportunity of working with performing artists from all of the the globe- as well as sampling what rocks their tastebuds. My kitchen skills landed me an instructing chef's position at Young Chefs Academy, in Harrisburg, before moving to the Steel City suburb of Pennsylvania; Beaver County. I started a blog for those folks too; Eat Beaver County. It was an interesting transition moving to Western PA. There ain't a whole lot going on around there in the realm of food... let alone ethnicity? You can get some fried fish at the fire dept. and a french fried beaver salad? Maybe a gyro at the Greek festivals? Unfortunately my local blog writing didn't last long as my time in "The Beave" came to a close. 

Fast forward to 2015 when the family and I packed ship and moved west to Olympia, Washington. Couldn't be more different than back east. Night and day. Ethnicity abounds, foodies galore, clams, organic everything; You get the picture. I miss home quite a bit, but, I'm learning to take everything in stride. Everyday is a new... um... adventure? Yeah. That's what we'll call it. 

In the mean time, my blog and weight loss has gotten some national recognition and I'm feeling pretty damn proud. Yeah, I was a big girl once. That is a whole other battle. Real food helps. Supplements are a plus. Journaling that climb helps, too. After all, 
I am among the fortunate 2% who have walked away from HSE virtually unscathed. Hard to walk away from a brain eating zombie virus, but, I'm pretty confident for the future TWD apocalypse. Sure, I have my moments of "duh" and don't even get me started on 4th grade math, but, that may just be the whole getting-older battle? Lucky for us, I write down the food stuff. Food is pretty important. We all need it. We all willingly put it into our bodies.  Food deserves more respect than it gets.  Way more respect. We should all eat with that in mind and we should all cook more. Hopefully these recipes help out? They sure as hell helped me. 

        PS: If you're wondering why AICC2? Here's a sample: