I hate writing/talking about myself but I guess I need to do something since the first page I always look at on any blog is the About section. Let’s see … where to begin? How about the beginning …
I was born and raised in a small town in New Jersey. My family is Italian and if you know any Italians, food is our life. We live for food. Food isn’t something to be consumed solely as fuel, it is a pleasure, a passion, a love. It is no surpirse that I grew up in a house where my dad made dinner every night and our Sunday night dinner was always the same. Macaroni and red sauce (or pasta and marinara as it is called today).
I realized very early that the food that I was eating was very different from my friends. I would go to school with a carton of milk, carrot sticks, pretzels, and an peanutbutter and jelly sandwhich on wheat bead. My friends often brought soda, cheese puffs, Hostess desserts, and Wonder bread sandwiches to school. They ate food that was foreign to me. I had extremely low bargaining power in the 2nd grade when I tried to trade my celery sticks for a Devil Dog. My mom made sure that our house was filled with healthy snacks and a lot of fruits and vegetables. We just didn’t have junk food.
In addition to warding off junk food, my parents also cooked. And boy oh boy did they cook. My dad cooked a fresh, healthy dinner every night which often consisted of a protein, like chicken or fish, a starch, like rice or potatoes, and a fresh vegetable (never canned or frozen), like broccoli or asparagus. I grew up apprecaiting all types of fruits and vegetables. To me, a normal after school snack was an apple, a clementine or two, a cucumber, or a head of lettuce (lettuce is one of my favorite vegetables, hence the title). I became a vegetarian at 14. My reasoning at that time was centered around my love of animals. I knew that people could live a healthy, normal life without consuming meat so I gave it up. I never ate a lot of meat as a kid and giving it up wasn’t a difficult task. As the years have gone on, I have become happier and happier about my decision to eat a vegerterian diet. The more I learn about health and nutrition, the more I am aware that a vegetarian body is healthy.
Unfortuanelty, by the time I was in college, I fell into the trap of being a junk-food vegetarian. Like most vegetarians, I thought that because I wasn’t consuming any meat then I was automatically healthy. Sure, I wasn’t eating fried chicken or hot dogs on a stick, but I would eat candy, diet cherry coke, chips and sugary cereals. My first semester of college I went to town; I ate all of the food that I was never eaten as a kid. Away from my parents’ house and living in the dorm, I had pop tarts for the first time, ate microwaveable mac and cheese, and frozen pizzas. All of the classic college junk-food was new to me and I had a field day. Fortunately, I started to work out during college (something that I barely did in high school) and didn’t gain more than a few pounds. By the end of my freshman year, I was over it. I wanted nothing to do with boxed, packaged, pre-made, microwavable, canned foods. I was craving real, homemade meals. I was in desperate need to get fruits and vegetables back in my diet.
The next year, I had learned from my mistakes and ate better. For the first time I realized that the food that I was eating impacted the way that I felt. I took that for granted when I was young. The big turning point was during my first semester junior year when I studied abroad in Rome, Italy. It was absolutely heaven to live in Rome for 4 months. I was surrounded by the best food I had ever eaten and I couldn’t get enough. I ate morning, noon and night. After my time in Italy, I became serious about food. The cooking fire had been lit under me and I was ready to get in the kitchen.
And I have been cooking ever since.
I graduated from Indiana University in May 2008 with a degree in finance. I moved to Nashville, TN to work as an accountant. I was in Nashville for one year before I transferred within my company to Lexington, KY. My parents no longer live in New Jersey (sad face); they moved to Charlotte, NC about three years ago and I often visit. It has been an interesting ride living in the northeast, mid-west, and south the past several years. I have learned to appreciate all types of people, situations, and food. In New Jersey I was schooled in diners and pizza, Indiana taught me about chili and corn hole, and in Tennessee I learned about meat and threes. And Kentucky, they are all about the horses. Riding them, not eating.
During the past year, I have become especially interested in health in addition to food. I have totally kicked my junk-food vegetarian ways and have gone back to what I have always known to be healthy. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains are all staples in my daily diet. I have also turned to running as my main souce of exercise. I am no longer the elliptical-ing gym-rat that I was in college; I prefer long runs outside in the fresh air. And I have a new found best friend. His name is Yoga.
Welcome to my blog and I hope you enjoy my yummy eats, health musings, running and yoga talk, and general life ramblings.
Whitney
Copyright
All photos and content (unless otherwise credited) are copyright of LettuceLove. My work is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. If you are interested in using any of my photos or quoting any of my blog content, please obtain my permission first at whitney@lettucelove.com.
Any recipes that are not my own or are inspired by others will be clearly noted and are not subject to my copyright. I will generally allow the use of my pictures for no commercial purposes so just ask.
