ABOUT ME:

Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I’m Julie, the writer, cook, baker, and picture-taker behind this operation. This is a food blog, in that the vast majority of posts conclude with a well-tested recipe I hope you’ll find intriguing. Before arriving at that actual recipe though, I write about whatever happens to pop into my pretty little head at any given moment.

A Little More About Me: I was born and bred in Texas, hailing from Dallas suburbia, where I grew up with my parents, younger sister, and a revolving door of various pets, not one of whom ever achieved a unanimous stamp of approval among the humans of the household. My mid-twenties arrived, I (randomly!) met my future husband, dusted the Texas off my metaphorical boots and trekked off to Newark, NJ, both to attend law school and to NOT EVER adjust to the cold winters, apparently. After one year of law school I married and we moved to Queens because it split our commute difference with exact fairness. We fell in love with Queens and stayed there nine years, until my husband’s job forced us to move to New Jersey. We bounced around Hoboken and Newark before buying a house in the ‘burbs. I reside with the aforementioned husband, Mr. Wallace, and our three cats, who we love. Even if they are insufferable food snobs who cry and howl whenever the bathroom door is shut.

Why a Food Blog: Obviously, I like to cook and bake, but it’s more than that. Almost everything about me has changed since I was a kid, and nowhere is that more apparent than my eating habits. I was that picky eater child every expectant mother secretly prays she won’t have, and I actually cared not to be in the kitchen for anything other than trying to sneak the sweets I wasn’t supposed to be eating between mealtimes. Then I grew up. I discovered that the produce section wasn’t my mortal enemy, that refusing to try new foods/cuisines is not proper adulting, and that cooking and baking are skills anyone can learn with some practice and reps. Oh, and that cooking is actually, well, really FUN once you get even a small handle on it. Besides, at this point I lived in New York Freaking City. Do you know how many of those life-experiences-through-food things I would have missed had I remained steadfast in my finicky childhood ways? It’d be sad to even think about. I’m self-taught via Food Network shows, YouTube videos, and mainly my extensive cookbook and food magazine collection. However, I still do not like beets, deviled eggs, and glazed holiday hams.

Other Mad Skills Completely Irrelevant to this Blog: Having always been your run-of-the-mill first-born overachiever, I graduated high school early, obtained a STEM degree in three years, and then went to work for a federal senator. I completed a master’s in Public Policy and Administration, then became a lawyer. I began my legal eagle career in the field of real estate…. in the fall of 2007. You can imagine how that went. I switched to pharmaceutical company litigation. But, my husband happens to be a chemist at a major pharma company. The conflict of interest struggle got real. So I went back to real estate, only this time on the investor side, and that’s been my “real job” ever since!