Jude

            To me one of the luxuries of life is dining with friends or family.  Sitting around the table for two or three hours feasting on good food and fine conversation has to be the most delightful way to spend an evening. It can be elegant with candlelight, a fancy tablecloth and formal place settings or low key with paper napkins and a pizza. What is important is to sit back, relax and enjoy.

            I think of dining as an art. It satisfies my creative side.  I get to plan a meal, design the setting, and if all goes accordingly, reap the benefits of the effort. As a child eating as a family was expected, even though I had parents who worked opposite shifts. Saturday and Sunday were the only two days that all seven of us sat down together. The meals were always well balanced, especially since my father had his huge garden in the backyard. My mother liked to cook and spent her mornings preparing dinner before she had to leave at noon. She included a list of instructions for my father and to the most part he followed them well. 

            I was the youngest of this tribe but my two oldest sisters had little, if any, interest in being in the kitchen and my two older brothers could not detach their hands from the baseball or football they carried around with them. My mother thus delegated me my father’s assistant when I was six. I eventually grew into the job and by the time I turned twelve, I realized I saw little of my father before dinner. 

            That wonderment of food, friends, family, and fun still exists in my life

 today. I have my own gardens filled with fruits, berries, and vegetables and I have raised my own family to enjoy the comforts of dining. I am a certified Health Coach through Columbia University and the Integrative Institute for Nutrition in New York. I am also a professor, journalist, and an author. I combined my background and lifestyle with my daughter Meghan, an incredible foodie and designer of recipes. my accomplished friend Linda, one of the best chefs I know, and her daughter Katharine, an amazing artist and food enthusiast.

            Now we want to share with you and invite you to join us at our table. Each week we will serve you our own favorite recipes from today and long ago, important food information to know just in case you missed reading the news that day, down home tidbits of good country living spiced with culture, lots of food history facts and fancy, and a finishing course of personal stories, most sprinkled with humor and wit. We look forward to your company.

RSVP

Jude