Welcome Aboard!

I figured it was about time I start a food blog. With the release of the movie, "Julie and Julia" a few months ago, everybody seems to be doing it, so why not me?

Chances are any readers I have will be people who know me so well that an introduction is fairly pointless...but...narcissism prevails and I'm starting with an introduction:

I'm Megan, 26, married, one kid, one dog, two cats, and far too many reptiles and amphibians and food is my life. I'm not a foodie (God I hate that word), not a fan of the sport of cooking sitting in the stands eating plastic-cheese nachos (though I do love and miss those...). I'm not the kind of person who checks out the new, hot restaurant every weekend where I can hope to be served a tiny portion of something-or-other for $60 when I could have made it at home for $20. I'm right in the thick of it. I'm in the front lines shooting my mushroom cabbage rolls, super soup (we'll get to that later), and the occasional cupcake at the enemy: culinary and nutritional apathy. I'm...a tad bit over-dramatic...

Okay, let's try the straight version: I'm a baker at MagPies: one of the best bakeries in the South, or heck the whole country for that matter (just ask Rachael Ray magazine, Southern Living, THE NEW YORK TIMES). I'm also a vegan, and no, before you ask, I don't consider this to be hypocritical. My veganism is a personal choice and not one that I necessarily think is right for others. The cupcakes and cakes we make at the bakery are AMAZING, and should be enjoyed by all. My boss has often said, "Everything in moderation", (though it's often closely followed another favorite phrase, "all butter all the time"), and I believe that is the smartest way to live. The story of how I became a vegan is a bit complicated and I'm sure we'll get to it eventually. The point is that I enjoy making delicious cupcakes and cakes for people to celebrate with and I relish the fact that I know the ingredients that go into them are top-notch, often local, and free from any weirdo-supermarket additives.

The other half of my life (the half that doesn't begin at 3 a.m.) is my son. He just turned a year old and he is...unique... In addition to a lot of other oddities I won't go into here, he has mild-moderate food allergies. Basically if he eats anything with dairy or wheat in it, we're in for a long, fun night of God-awful-stuff squirting out of various orifices. Gross enough? We've also recently discovered that while he enjoys eggs very much, without fail he will eat three bites and then throw them up all over his high chair tray (while still grinning, the poor kid really likes the eggs). I'm not sure whether this reaction constitutes a food allergy, but needless to say it's not something I really want to experience day in and day out. Thus, despite my willingness to cook animal products for my family even though I don't consume them, there are rarely ever any animal products in our kitchen except packets of Chicken of the Sea salmon which my son eats for lunch some days.

Since I believe very strongly in a whole foods approach to eating, I cook most of the food that is eaten in our household. As I also bake part-time for a living, I spend roughly 75% of my waking hours in the kitchen. I've developed a "take-no-prisoners" approach to cooking. At work, I live by the recipe book. That's my job. At home, however, I rarely ever follow a recipe to the letter. In fact, by the time the dish makes it to the table, it may only contain 1 or 2 of the original ingredients. I tend to use recipes as a starting point for my own creations. Often, I'll throw them out altogether and come up with my own.

So, the long and short of it is that I think about food constantly. If my little boy is sleeping and I'm not currently cooking, you can usually find me curled up on the couch with my latest love: giant textbooks on Nutrition and Food Science. I think the entire journey of food from the farm to...well...the end-of-the-line in our digestive systems is fascinating, and since my loved ones are probably tired of me talking their ears off about it, I'll get all my thoughts out here. I'm sure they'll thank me.