My Food Journey

Growing up with a family in Nebraska and California allowed me to experience a wide variety of ethnic styles of eating, in addition to understanding how and where food is grown.

1960-1971 Early Years 

My California roots were spent with many Sundays and holidays at my Southern italian grandparents, Nana & Nanu, enjoying the extended family,  in East LA. A variety of different Italian dishes, desserts, fish, meats, pasta, salads. It could be as intense as the Christmas tradition of the Seven Fishes, eating fried smelt, fried squid, cioppino filled with a light broth of tomato & lemon, with clams, lobster, shrimp, scallops, crab, cod(?) all purchased fresh that morning at the pier.  Regular Sundays started with Breakfast of eggs cooked in the bacon & sausage grease, basted until the yolk could ooze over the potatoes fried up in the holy bacon grease. Breakfast blended into lunch – a platter of meats, cheeses, peppers, olives, salads, breads to create your own sandwich.  Dinner would be pasta with sauce, sausages, meatballs and salad. Another favorite in season were batter fried zucchini or squash blossoms. Delicate, light, delicious. Remembering fresh pasta laid out to dry on the bed in the back bedroom, cookies everywhere. 

Snacks prevailed, dried fruits, fresh figs from the tree, nuts in the shell to crack open to pick out, Italian candies were scattered throughout the house, if you needed a sweet.

An overgrown garden in the back provided tomatoes, peppers, figs, zucchini, cucumbers and more, used for cooking.

Our home in Rosemead had an abundance of fruit trees – Apricot, peach, plum, kumquat – and a rosemary bush that my sister & I would push each other into the sticky sap sticking to us, much to mom’s chagrin. We would get fresh avocados from a neighbor. My favorite sandwich for lunch was a simple mashed avocado, a bit of mayo. Tantrums were had if I was “stuck” with a PB&J, definitely a SoCal problem. Mom learned how to make fresh flour tortillas from another neighbor, plus refried beans, taquitos, burritos, and of course, tacos. 

My dad’s family was based in a small township near North Platte, Nebraska. The heartland of the US, and to this day, there are family ranchers and farmers.   Grandma and Grandpa had a triple lot, the house in the middle, one lot loaded with all different veggies, that would ripen over the course of the season. Nothing compares to pulling a carrot from the ground, rinse off the dirt, and crunching on its incredible flavor. A tomato, still warm from the sun, bursts in your mouth, sweet peas popping out of their pods eaten before they can be set aside for dinner. Zucchini, cucumbers, watermelon, and more, used for lunch or dinner. The other lot was primarily sweet corn and peonies. “Knee high by the 4th of July”, and we were usually there just in time after school was let out for the summer to enjoy fresh sweet corn on the cob. My grandma would cook everything simply, maybe a bit of salt or pepper, yet when all your food is this fresh, the flavors just shine on their own. 

My grandfather, dad, my sister, and I would head out to the lake to fish, bringing home to clean and prep white bass, perch, catfish or walleye. Us girls would help with gutting and scaling too. 

Depending on the season, my sis and I would be “bird dogs”, flushing out pheasants or ducks for dad or grandpa to shoot. Nothing like spitting out buckshot as you eat.  I did like keeping the feathers, as they were beautiful. 

Milk, eggs, beef, pork, chicken were all from small local farmers, supporting each other was a way of life. 

I loved watching all the cooking shows on SoCal PBS like Julia Child, The Galloping Gourmet – Graham Kerr, Yan Can Cook, and more like those. Shadowing my Nana or Grandma in the kitchen, learning how to make it taste good, which didn’t necessarily mean exact measurements. Well, except baking, which I admittedly am not the best. 

1971-1987 Texas & Ohio

Dad was transferred by the USDA Dept of Meat Inspection to the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where we lived for a year, before he was promoted, transferred to the Cleveland area. It was in Texas where I started studying French in 8th grade, asking for French Cookbooks, La Technique by Jacques Pepin, carrying that love with me to stretch my skills.  Funny, in retrospect, not that much barbecue, just the giant steaks.

Dad was promoted within a year, transferred to Cleveland, as a regional Meat Inspector. 

Ohio…not quite midwest, not quite East Coast. We lived in Westlake, a suburb on the west side, with very little ethnic diversity, in comparison to Los Angeles. We did live on a ⅓ acre, with a small garden, raising chickens, ducks, and rabbits for eggs and food. Dad took care of the “dirty work”, yet I was taught how to skin a rabbit, clean a chicken, plus break them down into parts for future meals. How to: make homemade sausage, fry up a chicken, cut up a large piece of beef into steaks, stew pieces, a small roast, to can tomatoes, ferment sauerkraut or pickles in the basement, to be frugal with what we had, creative with ingredients on hand. Grateful for the experience, as hard as it seems now. 

While I was in Ohio, I found an Indian cooking class when I was at college, introducing completely new flavor and spice profiles with recipes that were easily duplicated. I was in heaven, making curries, and butter chicken.  In Columbus, while at Ohio State, it was a bit more cosmopolitan, yet still not like what I had in LA. Mom would ship me avocados, flour tortillas that were in short supply at that time, with the only avocados were from Florida, watery, woody, no flavor unlike the Haas from California & Mexico.

1988 Return to California

I returned to Southern California after divorce, to work, create a new life. To be able to have all the wonderful variety back again, I love how Mom and my sister took me to their favorite places – East Indian, Mongolian BBQ, Ethiopian, Sushi, Vegan (Krishna temple!), Thai, Mexican, and of course, Italian.  All the spices, tastes, experiences, expanding my palate beyond my dreams. I started meeting people from all walks of life, and began dating again. 

1991-1998 Sacramento

Having married an Ashkenazi Jew, I gathered cookbooks and recipes from his mom. Learning about the holidays, which seemed to have a different food or meal associated, was a challenge I accepted. Even more fun was the addition of the Sephardic recipes, more spices, seasonings, that were in their tradition. Trying to navigate Passover,increasing my awareness of ingredients, reading labels – did it have wheat? Corn? Did it have a Kosher for Passover symbol? What about vegetables? I still have my “cheat sheets” I use to this day, yet it’s so much easier now. 

I chose Judaism, began following the laws of kashrut, giving up pork products, mixing beef and dairy, and eventually non-kosher fish (shellfish, squid, octopus, eel). Sushi was a new found love, and all the non-kosher fish (No fins or scales) seemed to be my favorites. The absolute last to go was shrimp in part due to my sister having developed a severe allergy. 

While living in Sacramento, we were active in our congregation, where I met an absolute wonderful group of women. This is where I met Elaine Corn, her husband David Soohoo, and their son, Robert. She was an accomplished former news editor turned food editor and author, David a restaurateur.  We became fast friends, and enjoyed her love of food, its stories, and history. I was honored to be asked to be a recipe tester for 3 of her cookbooks (plus having her include my family recipes in 2!) – “Now You’re Cooking”, “Gooey Desserts”, and “365 Ways to Cook Eggs”.  It was so much fun, plus the experience of making sure the recipes “worked”. Were the instructions easy to follow? Were the ingredients accessible? I would need to provide notes, feedback, suggestions which she would use. All were so different, and love having each in my collection of cookbooks. At her husband’s restaurant, I experienced the best Mongolian Lamb I’ve ever had, his tasting menu was spectacular. He did open a fast food version, because he knew that there was no reason that Chinese food should be on a steam table.  Fast and flavorful was key.

It was also with Elaine, that I had an introduction to the catering world, as she volunteered to provide the Yom Kippur Break the Fast for our congregation, which meant preparing for over 1100-1500 hungry congregants after the 27 hour fast. Elaine decided the first year she wanted to make individual plates (which included chicken liver pate, hard boiled egg, chopped salad, gefilte fish, challah) from scratch with the use of another congregants catering kitchen, plus David’s restaurant kitchen. He saved the chicken livers & skin for us to make the chopped chicken liver  from scratch – rendering the chicken skin with onions into a liquid gold to be added to the livers also cooked in this golden fat. All cooled, then blended into a creamy pate. We boiled and peeled 1000’s of eggs to be used in the pate, plus as a side for the plate. A chopped salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, onion, dressed with fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. Listening to Katya, the caterer, watching the volumes of roasted potatoes with garlic, rosemary, & salt to a perfect balance of crisp & tender, lamenting that there would always be someone that wouldn’t like her cooking. To me, to see the work, the love, and to imagine someone being ungrateful was unfathomable. Yet eye opening when others have suggested I open a restaurant or to cater. That experience of volume cooking, yet keeping the quality consistent was invaluable. The congregants of course upon seeing the premade plates all had an opinion, mostly incredulous on how we accomplished this feat, yet confused. They were used to bowls to self serve. The next year, the menu was kept the same, yet back to the bowls for self serve. 

1996 Rachel was born, and my passion to be sure she experienced all different types of foods, what I was blessed with as a kid. Some she loved, others her taste changed, all understandable.

1999-2004 Moved to Orange County 

 Working for the Cantor at my Temple, I would help with the Adult choir (Altos rule!) choir books, music, and the welcome back Choir Schmooze at our first High Holiday rehearsal of wine & cheese. On Rosh Hashanah day the choir would be responsible for singing at services beginning at 9am (warm up at 8:30am) to 10:30am-1pm. Cantor would usually just arrange for bagels, fruit, & coffee, yet because cooking is my love language, what started as the simple bagels, pastries, fruit & coffee…expanded into my homemade fritattas, baked stratas, both sweet & savory, with the last one I hosted included a waffle bar.  It became legendary with the choir and their families to enjoy, or we would joke “choir adjacent” people were welcome as well.  

I loved the large kitchen, and helping out at Onegs (snacks & desserts after the Friday night services). My happy place was a kitchen, be it in any capacity.

An assistant rabbi & her family came, and we learned they were vegetarian. Curious how I could create delicious dinners for them, for an ad hoc choir event, I made 2 lasagnas – one with ground turkey & cheese (work around, because the commandment Exodus 23:19: “… Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.” and last I checked, turkeys don’t make milk) and one vegan with gimme lean sausage (soy) and vegan cheese. I let everyone taste both as a blind taste test (except for the rabbis – they had their own). Everyone loved the vegan, much to their surprise! This was exciting, as then I had a new challenge, how to create vegan meals that replicated meat based flavors. Plus the advantage of not having to worry about Kashrut made vegetarian eating much simpler in so many ways. 

2004-2019

In summer of 2004, with an upcoming divorce, I made the decision to get sober. This decision was impactful, which empowered me in so many ways, plus to walk away from something that would only hold me back from my true self. 

I had struggled with my weight for years, unable to lose the “baby weight”, and decided to get nutritional counseling with a doctor that resonated when I heard him speak at a complimentary lecture. The use of Round-up in our farms, especially with corn and wheat, leads to intolerance, and bloating, since the premise of the pesticide is for the insect to ingest, causing its stomach to explode. With his help, bio-feedback, and wonderful easy recipes, I was able to lose 60lbs, and have all my labs go to normal range. The biggest takeaways I learned from him, was to focus on whole foods, shop the outer aisles, if I was to buy anything prepackaged (in a box, can, frozen) that there were to be no preservatives, no additives, no oils, no sugar, only water.  Luckily I have been an avid label reader, so this continued an already in place practice. 

Over the next few years, I continued following most of his suggestions, yet with the stress of becoming a single mom, sweets and the ease of fast food began to creep in, which led to weight gain, inflammation, bone and muscle pain, all came back. It became a struggle again to keep up with taking care of my daughter, myself, and move toward the food lifestyle that helped me the most. Slowly I began packing lunches for myself at work again, bringing healthy snacks, yet it was a constant battle due to the vending machines at my office, plus the constant influx of donuts, candy, and vendor lunch & learns that were difficult for me to navigate trying to eat more plant-based. I knew that food was my medicine and way to a healthier body. 

In 2017, I had the call from my doctor that I had suspicious spots on my mammogram, and after multiple biopsies, determined I had breast cancer, fortunately caught early enough to remove with a mastectomy. The 3 tumors were on one side only, and had not moved to my lymph nodes, with the only post surgical need being to be on an anti-estrogen medication for at least 5 years post op. No radiation, no chemotherapy was a blessing, if it only meant I had to experience menopause again. The recovery was better than expected by my surgeon. Ironically, with the diagnosis, I didn’t necessarily change eating, yet it was a humor-warrior mindset that was key to my recovery. With genetic counseling, it was determined that my cancer was most likely environmental, which after learning more about cancer development, made sense. It is what we eat, our environment that has the most impact on us. 

2019-2022

My mom’s last sibling passed from lung cancer in December, the favorite auntie, the “glue” for all of us cousins, nieces, nephews and kids. I had further gone vegetarian by now, with only cheese and occasionally fish in my diet. The rest of my extended family were carnivores, heavy on the meats, cheeses, all that I was learning would impact our health, and I decided I wanted to be present for my daughter’s life. Watching the documentary “Forks over Knives” and “Game Changers” was powerful, reading “The Blue Zones” how to live a healthy active life to 100 was inspiring. 

The year the world changed, 2020. On March 13, 2020, the office building I worked at was sold, and we all began to “temporarily” work from home, then on March 16, 2020, Los Angeles and most of the world went into lockdown for the pandemic. Most of my work was either via phone or email, and the clients I supported were essential businesses. Grateful I had a full fridge and pantry before lockdown, and because I was trending toward whole foods, I was not as impacted like some. I even did “Pandemic Pantry” and “Kathleen’s Kitchen” live, did simple recipes, and found in my British Museum cookbook recipes from the Black Plague timeframe to reproduce. 

For me, 2020 was a time of reflection. Plagues had happened before in history, usually a 2-3 year window, and having been one of those people fascinated by the science, culture, and understanding the medical treatments developed, for each. I watched more documentaries, read again “The Plague” by Albert Camus, and noticed how we had some control over how we lived through this time. I found new recipes, how to work with what I had on hand, inspired by all my favorite food shows like Top Chef, Iron Chef, and Chopped. Pulling out cookbooks, extracting bits and pieces to create something quick, delicious, and new to me. 

As the world transitioned out of lock down, I found I was transitioning even more into whole food plant-based cooking and nutrition. Mom was needing more assistance with doctor appointments, shopping since the lock down. Rachel had moved to Quebec in 2017, and I was really the only family member in OC. My sister, Mom, and I all decided it would be a good idea for me to move up to LA, and it made sense for Mom and I to move in together. This way I could be the primary caretaker for her. The fun part was that now all the dishes I would describe on the phone to her, I could make, this way help with her health as well.  I signed up for Veganuary the past 3 years. It was becoming easier and easier to be plant-based, plus so many more options were available.  Mom was enjoying all my new recipes, and slowly gave up dairy cheese, as I found recipes, and vegan options in stores.

2023-present

I had found a new job, that was only 6 miles away, in the office. Small family IT business, that was looking for an Operations manager for some projects. It was helpful to be back to a 9-5 in the office, yet close enough if Mom needed help. I brought my lunches, and shared some of my recipes, creations, which amazed them how plant-based could taste this good. The owner even suggested I go see a lecture by a gentleman that survived a “widow maker” heart attack. He was a walking miracle, and founded his own science based nutrition program plus food service based on whole food, plant-based, no oil, no sugar. There was a buffet dinner included with some of their foods, which Mom and I were underwhelmed due to the lack of flavor. We both know that spices are key to not having “sad food”.  What I did gain were books, his presentation which impacted me like the doctor before. The clincher was reading, The Starch Solution, Better than Vegan, and most importantly,  The China Study. Now I know, all I have learned, how I cook, how to make food delicious yet keep to the core value of being plant-based to increase not only my health, my mom’s, yet help others on their journey developed into a passion. I was laid off in January 2025, which has become a blessing. I was able to take the leap, and signed up for the Plant-based Nutrition Certification with eCornell University, being led by doctors, nutritionists, those that I had followed, read, and admired for their passion for health. The more I learned, the more I felt guided to help others, that plant-based IS DELICIOUS and can impact our lives positively. Has all my family followed my path, no, yet Mom has, and we both have the lab work to show that it works. My muscle & joint pain is gone, cravings have disappeared, and my “food noise” in my head is minimal. Do I do this perfectly every day? No, I do my best.  Will I still have cake at a wedding? Yes. 

Reflecting as I have written this, realizing that good food, fresh ingredients, simple or complicated meals, learning about different cultures, recreating family favorites, has always been part of my story.  Because we can fill our plate, and feed our souls to live a longer, healthier, and happier life.