Introduction - Samantha's Food History

I live to eat. When I plan vacations, the main things that I worry about are: 

1. Where am I going to eat?
2. Where am I going to sleep? (This is also important).  

The success of vacations are measured by the quality of the food.  The visit to Seattle in the midst of an ice storm sounds like it has the potential to be the worst vacation ever, but then you factor in fried cheese curds, BBQ pork humbow,  and Pike Place Market, and it's one of the best vacations I've ever had. 

BBQ pork humbow at Pike Place Market

I remember the restaurants in the places where I used to live as child with a laser-like focus.  At five years old, I had already created a map in my head of the places where I liked to eat or could get food.  

So food has always been on my mind and it was easy to lose myself in the textures, flavors, and comfort that food could provide. Consequently for most of my life, my weight has also been an unpleasant reminder of my love of food. Diets were the equivalent of a gastronomic prison sentence. 

My mother has always been the cook in the house. My dad would occasionally pull out some Italian dish - fiddling around with ratios of tomato paste to bread crumbs in his Sicilian Spidini, but I think I would be more likely to win the lottery than see my dad cook like this again in my life (scrambled eggs don't count).  My mother is an intimidating culinary presence so trying to wrestle the "cook of the house" mantle away from her is a challenge. However, my mother is a pretty pitiful baker and so baking was a relatively safe way that I could cook and experiment without threatening her status or endangering her beloved kitchen.  I'm that crazy person who likes to make the most time-consuming recipes or bake things from scratch. This is another way that my mother and I differ.  

I would bake pies, cookies, bars from the Joy of Cooking,  croissants and bagel bombs from Momofuku Milk Bar's cookbook and then on January 16, 2012, I decided to start living life sans gluten.  This was a spontaneous decision (a true rarity for me), but I felt so much better the next day that I was sold.   Eating gluten-free provided me with an opportunity to cook more in my household. I bought some gluten-free and Paleo cookbooks,  but I don't think I'll ever be able to complete with the veritable wall of cookbooks that my mother owns (the background picture of this blog). 

Cooking more provided me the opportunity to relate more with my mother. We started going to grocery stores together, talking about food. She would reluctantly and at times brusquely answer my cooking questions - "Do you think this pot is big enough?" 

So while cooking has provided us this opportunity to bond, it has also fueled some of our greatest arguments. My mother and I are very different people - I like to measure and follow a recipe. She's a little more carefree and likes to "concoct" dishes.   

I've recently come to the realization that I am a carboholic. Eating gluten-free greatly reduced my intake of carbs because while there are some really great gluten-free products they don't always come close to the gluten-y goodness of pizza, bread, etc.  However in this new year, I have decided to eliminate grains all together and start living a more Paleo way of life.  

In the midst of rolling out meatballs, I brought up the idea of starting a blog with my mother to talk about our love of cooking, our memories of food (and eating),  and our relationship together.  This is the result.  :)