I grew up in the mid-west with my 3 sisters. For much of my childhood I lived on a farm raising goats and chickens, and helping tend to a huge garden that was a primary source of food for our vegetarian family. From the beginning I grew up with homemade bread, home-canned veggies, fruits and jams, and when I wanted a snack was told to “go find something from the garden”. By age 4, I would wake up on Saturday mornings and make pancakes from scratch (don’t worry, I wasn’t allowed to cook them yet), and by age 9 was in charge of making dinner 2-3 times a week for our family of 6. I learned fractions and other math elements from cooking, and the love for real food has never left me. Now living in Pittsburgh, married with a 4-year old daughter, cooking has become a source of serenity and calm for me at the end of a work-day. While I may not always have the time to devote to a dinner the way I used to (gone are the days of spending 2 hours on a meal for 2), I focus on coming up with easy vegetarian meals using real foods to feed my family of 3.