Making Love in the Kitchen

Some people have been wondering why modest me chose to name my blog “Making Love in the Kitchen.” For those of us who live in Fresno, we are blessed to live in the county that produces 12.2% of California’s agricultural exports.  However we consume the least fruits and veggies, we have the highest rates of obesity and highest food insecurity in our state.  I think this is largely due to the lack of food culture here in the valley.  People are so busy that they consume large amounts of fast food and processed food in restaurants and pre-packaged at grocery stores.  

Somewhere the idea has been lost that when we prepare a meal for our family, we aren’t just creating a meal, we’re creating love.  The family gathered for a meal and this bonded people.  The subject “whats for dinner” was eagerly discussed amongst us seven kids and sometimes became a source of contention as we all preferred different things and would try to sway what was on the menu.  I learned how to make many of the dishes my mom prepared except two.  These were my favorite dishes.  When my mother made them for me it was because she loved me.  I could taste the love in every bite and her eyes would sparkle as she watched me eat until I couldn’t breathe.  

Indians are hospitable by nature, but early on my mother taught us that we were never to eat food from people we didn’t know.  She said that food must only be eaten when someone who loves you prepares a meal with your health and welfare in mind.  Working as a chef, she claimed that restauranteurs only cared about their bottom line and would entice your taste buds but your body would pay for it later. If we were having company over, she picked the veggies from her garden and labored for hours to prepare the meal so they would know how much she loved them.  If we invited her over and ordered pizza or if we took her to a restaurant she viewed that as a lack of love.  “Do you think they won’t serve me at the restaurant or I can’t pay for my own food?” she’d ask.  There was no replacement for the love that went into a home made meal.

Today, we’ve gotten away from that.  We eat what is fast, what is convenient.  We generally have no idea who grows or prepares our food.  We don’t know what half the items on the labels are.  For example I thought citric acid was a good thing.  I figured they were using lemon and orange juice for citric acid to preserve the freshness of food.  Citric acid is a chemical that is created to preserve our food.  Nothing natural about it.  

So my blog and my goal is to create a local food culture where we embrace the slow food movement.  We connect to the farmers who are growing our food and the business people that care enough to prepare it in a healthful way. We limit our imported food to what we can’t grow here like mango, pineapple, coconut, cashew etc.  We don’t import grapes in January when we have grape farmers who can’t make a living here locally.  We look forward with anticipation to eating local fruit in season.  We reject the businesses who are making a buck by enticing our taste buds without delivering the nutrition our body needs.  We embrace and support farmers and responsible cooks and elevate them to the healers they are and can be, because we believe that an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.

If you don't know how to make tasty dishes or you don't know what to make, invest the time needed to learn.  It's fun and so rewarding!  I love feeding people, I love being able to take care of their health as my full time job.  You too can experience the satisfaction of having your family revive because of the food you prepare for them.  I'll do my part to share everything I know with you. Naomi Hendrix the "Raw Food Queen" of Fresno has weekly classes where you learn how to prepare an appetizer, entree and dessert and you get to eat it for only $20.  Instead of having celebrity chefs showing how to make rich, opulent dishes, we want to televise how to make delicious healthy dishes from locally grown ingredients.  We'd like to showcase farmers, moms and local home cooks that are making love in the kitchen.  So as parents let's pass on the gift of home made meals.  Let's make "real" food from wholesome ingredients, grown by people who care, made by us for people we care about.  Let's Make Love in the Kitchen.