Most of my meals growing up were prepared by my mother who never invited my sister and me into the kitchen to help.  When dinner was served, we sat down, ate it and cleaned up.  We talked during the meal but not about food.  In fact, there was no curiosity about the meal at all.  We ate to satisfy hunger.  So nobody was more surprised than me when I married, bought my first cookbook, and prepared my first meal (meatloaf, mashed potatoes and carrots with dill) that the meal turned out great and everyone loved my cooking.  That comfort food dinner was inspired by my first purchased cookbook (Delights and Prejudices by James Beard) bought, as my husband likes to still point out, through a negative option book club.  Beard’s book was a great first choice for me because it inspired me to cook and I loved Beard’s connection with food, culture and traditions.

After that first meal, I went on to buy many more cookbooks and cook, cook, cook.  Through trial and error my cooking improved and I began to understand the science of cooking and to develop my personal style.

I have participated in many cooking classes including James Beard (NYC), Lydie Marshall (NYC and Nyons, France), Ann Howard, the New School for Social Research, the Silo in New Milford and more on practically every subject.  Each time I take a class, I learn something new. 

Since my first meal, I have written a cookbook (The Seasonal Country Kitchen, available through Amazon) emphasizing fresh food from our first farm in New York, taught cooking classes, published a newsletter, demonstrated prepared foods for a friend, demonstrated cooking techniques in the community, and catered small parties.  I also lived on a farm in Vermont with sheep, chickens, turkeys, Black Angus beef, a huge truck garden, a greenhouse, a pot bellied pig named Chloe, Morgan horses and a wild German shorthaired pointer.  Oh, there was a husband and two kids in there somewhere.

I have had my byline in the Hartford Courant and am testing recipes for Leites Culinaria.  I am working on a new cookbook and writing a mystery involving a heroine who is opening a catering business and is surrounded by murder and mayhem.

Life is an adventure, there is always something new to learn, people to meet and feed and I usually take on more than I can chew.  Welcome to my world!

Lila