Behind the Apron

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Humm.. What can I share about myself? I am a 36 year old mother of four. I have a degree in biology w/ an emphasis in ecology. After I got my degree I worked as a fisheries biologist. An awesome job, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel all over Alaska to some VERY remote places.. I got my degree as a single mother w/ my two older kids in tow. Kinda of a strange turn of events -that I ended up after all of that blood sweet and tears of being a single, working mother going to collage only lead me to be a stay at home mom w/ my two younger ones.

Why Vegan? Unlike many of you long time vegetarians I am a newbie.. At first when the news came of Mad Cow in the U.S. I immediately stopped buying/cooking beef. I started replacing some of meals w/ vegetarian. Then when my youngest daughter, Emma was about 18 mo old we had just quit breastfeeding and she broke out in the most un-godly rash/hives for six weeks. So bad that at times her joints/ hands and feet would swell up and it was too painful for her to even walk. Terrifying. She had also dropped off the growth chart from the fiftieth percentile to the 12th, and was diagnosed w/ failure to thrive- again terrifying. I had spent hours on the Internet as well as hours at the doctor. I had begun her on a gluten free diet and switched to soy. Meanwhile still feeding her eggs. Finally a blood test had shown that she was allergic to all dairy (milk and eggs). The signs were there her whole little life.. The only time I ever really drank milk was when I was pregnant or breastfeeding. So began our journey. I had to relearn how to cook everything. So, I bought some vegan cookbooks. For a while I was cooking basically two dinners- that got old quick. And after expanding my vegan cookbook selection all of the food just looked so good. One thing lead to another I quit cooking meat and began cooking one dinner every night-Vegan.


Here I am in Hong Kong last November. I was very fortunate to be able to join my little brother in Thailand for two weeks. He had been traveling throughout South Eat Asia for a year and was getting ready to come back when I thought to myself that he would be the perfect tour guide. A trip of a life time. We stopped in Hong Kong for a couple of days on our way home. I was happy to be there despite my picture..Really. I had woken up that morning w/ a KILLER sore throat.

This is my family- my oldest daughter Amber(17) holding Emma(4), my oldest son Keith(20) holding Eli(5), my honey and I . This was taking last summer at my little brothers wedding.