A bit about me… I grew up in the UK and moved to Northern California in the late 1990s, drawn here, like so many others, by the lure of the dot.com boom. As it turns out, my journey was really about bites not bytes.
I was fortunate enough to be raised by a mother who believed in real food. Nothing processed or packaged, but simple home-grown fruits and vegetables, and meats bought straight from the farm. She baked our bread, shopped at the outdoor food market, entertained often and never stopped me from getting messy in the kitchen.
Decades later, I have come to appreciate what an amazing food upbringing my three siblings and I had. When I first moved to the US I was surprised to discover how many of my friends actually liked junk food – it never held any appeal for me. Becoming a parent ten years ago, I started to pay close attention to what my family was eating; I made baby food, focused on organic fruits and vegetables and banned junk food from our house.
In 2011, realizing that I was spending most of my weekends roaming through the valleys of Norcal in search of real food – from Noe Valley to Napa Valley, the Capay Valley to Carmel Valley – and realized it was time to get back to my roots. I started to read voraciously about why eating real food matters, vs. simply consuming just anything that’s edible. I devoured Michael Pollan‘s books about the history of the food industry in the US and its implications for our future. I cheered on Jamie Oliver as he started his Food Revolution and I abandoned my urban life in San Francisco to set up home in Sonoma Co. to get closer to the “source” of real food.
Alice Dishes is written for anyone who’s curious about real food, eager to learn why it matters to our bodies, our children and our planet, and who’d like to be entertained along the way. Bon appétit!
