Julie Hashimoto-McCreery

Over the course of these last 26 years, food has been a necessity, a desire, a complexity, a difficulty, a joy, and a complete fascination in my life.

I graduated from college with a degree in psychology and creative writing, with no desire to enter the field of psychology, nor the desire to attempt writing as a profession. In the last three years, I’ve found myself increasingly curious about cooking, food, meal-preparation, and culinary arts.

My learning has mostly been self-taught, in between various memories of my parents’ cooking and lots of reading. Food and cooking has become a welcomed preoccupation for me. It’s such a basic need… one that can bring such a fulfilling joy and a complete fullness that can so easily be filled.

I live in Southern Oregon with my vegetarian partner, and half of the time, his two kids (a 13 year old vegetarian and a 6 year old self proclaimed “meat eater and a vegetarian”). My style of cooking varies; during kid-week, we eat a lot of Mexican-influenced meals, simply because they go over well with everyone and make it easy to provide a pretty balanced diet for our family. On the weeks we don’t have the boys, I experiment more and often include fish into our meals.

When I think of food, I reminisce about family gatherings, I think about places I’ve enjoyed and loathed meals, I wonder where recipes have originated. I desire learning, appreciation, growth. I want more. Not more food (well, not always, at least), but more connection. More understanding. I want to know how to cook, what to cook, where ingredients have come from, where recipes have come from. I want to know what your great grandmother or grandfather, parent, sibling, lover, spent hours in the kitchen preparing… the things they adamantly avoided preparing.

I don’t always make good eating decisions. I don’t always make it a point to cook healthy things. I crave meals, desserts, snacks, things, that are definitely not good for me. I don’t always want to prepare something elaborate. Sometimes the only thing I am hungry for is a bag of Thai Spice Kettle Chips for dinner. I try to remember moderation… and give in to cravings without feeling too guilty.

What does food mean to you? What do you cook? Why don’t you cook? What do you enjoy about eating? What are your most loved and most hated foods? I want stories, musings, memories. Maybe you aren’t as obsessed as me. I still want to know! I’m starting this blog, because over the last couple years I’ve gotten requests from friends and family to share recipes I’ve come up with, or questions about what I’m cooking at home. Plus I’m addicted to reading other peoples’ food blogs.