This is a blog about food and since food comes from a garden (someone’s garden: my kitchen garden, the local farmer’s market, or some farm somewhere in the world) I decided I would write about food and garden. Everything from favorite recipes, cooking successes and failures, gardening journeys, green and sustainability issues, and more.
Who am I? The blogger? I’m Cate Brosseau and I live to eat. I caught the bug as a pre-teen when I was handed Julia Child’s book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. From those early days, my life has certainly changed and required me to adapt my shopping and cooking accordingly.
I am a 47 year old working mother of two teenage daughters (one in college, one finishing high school) living in the mid-west. I married into a large Italian family that expanded my food experience even further.
I love to cook for the people that I love. It is absolutely personal.
I am not a vegetarian. I love meat. I try to eat as organic as possible, however I’m not strict about this. I am not on a diet and I will post recipes that contain butter as well as olive oil. I have no problem cooking crustaceans, fresh from our waterways. I live in a landlocked state which makes access to certain types of food difficult, but not impossible.
All of these life experiences qualify me to talk about cooking for one, two, four, and a crowd. There have been times when I have cooked on tight budgets and times when I could entertain in style. My passion for organic and local food sources has greatly influenced my cooking lately. I feel it’s especially important to pass along to our children the ability to grow food, cook food, and explore the relationship between food culturally and through the generations.
I have no professional training, save my growing library of cookbooks and my addiction to certain food shows, particularly Top Chef. I am old enough to remember the early cooking shows that inspired me like Julia’s show or the Galloping Gourmet or the Two Fat Ladies and, a particular favorite, the Great Chef series.
But passion? I think about food from the moment I wake up (the french press, fresh fruit, raw sugar and whole grain I’ll consume) to what I’ll prepare each evening for whoever will be here (revolving door at this stage in my life.) I anticipate trying new recipes and devouring my favorite magazines. I look forward to the change of seasons and the ingredients that present themselves. I relish planning family gatherings and all holidays.
I hope you’ll find the recipes useful, the gardening accessible, and my research and observations about food and culture informative.