Growing up in the mid-seventies in the “Garden State” is where I discovered the wholesomeness of real food. The choices instilled in me from childhood and some important key researching necessities for why problems may arise in our bodies.
My best friend lived down the street from me, and her parents were first-generation American Italians, with her grandparents living on their vast property next door to them. I can still recall when her mother would have us go out to the backyard to select the lettuce and tomatoes out of the garden for dinner. For fun, we would challenge one another to eat these bitter light green grapes off a canapé vine near her grandparent’s house, not knowing at the time why they were so inedible.
A few years after returning home to New Jersey from college in Miami, I finally met the young man of my dreams. He was born in Italy the same year as me, and his family owned a restaurant. It thrilled me to be able to walk through vegetable gardens again, and the gained knowledge of cooking and packing on thirty-plus pounds was well worth it.
During our engagement, my husband had been offered a job with one of the largest food distributors in the country while I ran my own salon business. This new position vastly gained him more knowledge in the food industry and allowed us to relocate back to Florida.
Although we loved the slower pace and cleaner air, it was hard to find great food, with most restaurants being chain-like. And some of the restaurants we tried didn’t seem to put the love and flavors we were accustomed to into their meals. Taking this disadvantage and turning it into a positive tool and the explosion of new social media led us to experiment with new cooking concepts.
In our mid-thirties, we started expanding our family and made good choices of what kind of food would nourish our new babies to grow healthy. As the children grew, my mother relocated and moved in with us, and I found myself more of a short-order cook than a beautician. I was very thankful that I could take care of my mother then; I believed it helped pave the way to test some recipes and perfect my cooking skill.
All aspects of food, from field and farm to store and stove to table and mouth, play an important key part in healthy living, which we all need to keep abreast of in this ever-changing world. My husband and I were always homebodies, way before it was fashionable. We would watch various cooking shows and compare their techniques and cooking methods to his formal training and the hereditary skills he learned from his parents.
Making delicious meals and researching products has inspired me as a stay-at-home mom to start this website to help out others who don’t have the time or expertise in the kitchen to provide healthy, delicious nourishment that our bodies need to sustain a long healthy life.
I hope you find these articles and recipes easy to expedite and enjoy everything we eat.
Ciao
Check out this clip below from the movie “The Long Kiss Goodnight” Staring Geena Davis. It inspired the name of the website “HOME- CHEF-NINJA”… chefs do that!
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