This March brought about a few big milestones for the Phoo-d family. Our sweet Anna turned 1 year old, marking progress from the sleepless nights and constant feedings of a newborn to the laughing, clapping, crawling (almost walking!) antics of a soon-to-be toddler. March also ushered in the 1 year milestone of changing our lifestyle to follow a vegan and gluten free diet.

Last April, I shared with you the story of my diagnosis with rheumatoid arthritis and my struggle to keep the disease under control during pregnancy and my child bearing years, when medicated options are limited. After much research and soul searching Mr. B and I decided to embrace a vegan and gluten free diet to lower the overall level of inflammation in my body. That decision has changed my life in so many ways.

In early June of 2010 I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I was only 28 years old. Two weeks later I learned that I was pregnant with our first child.

The arthritis began years earlier, when I noticed tenderness and swelling in the lowest joint of my right index finger. At 22 I thought the swelling was a result of holding my cell phone too tightly while spending hours talking to Mr. B (a long distance relationship meant lots of phone time.) I taped the finger to the next one and bought a hands-free ear piece. After several weeks the swelling went away and in my mind the problem was solved. Over the next six years the swelling would recur several times. However with new cell phones every two years I always thought the pain was simply a result of overuse. I would buy an ear piece that worked with my current phone and try to use my finger less. By 2010 the swelling refused to go away. After months of religiously using an ear piece every time I was on the phone, I began to think that something else might be wrong.

You may have noticed that the recipes slowed down a bit around here in July and August. You may also have noticed that the few which appeared were for things such as homemade dill pickles and a lemony frozen yogurt. Now either of these things could simply indicate a busy summer and an overactive garden, both of which were true. However, the real reason lies in a different realm.

To provide a bit of context for my random musings, recipes, and finds on this site, I thought I’d sit down with you and share my general approach to food and why I am so passionate about it.

Let’s start with a little background. I grew up on the West Coast in a home that sat on several acres overlooking the Pacific ocean. To keep you from creating the wrong mental image, let me be sure to tell you that the house was a cozy 1,000 square feet and our only heat came from a single wood stove. So just chase any Malibu mansion images far far away! As long as I can remember my family grew our own food. We had a big vegetable garden, apple trees, and even a pear tree, thanks in very large part to my father’s love of gardening. In addition to fresh produce, my father’s avid interest in hunting and fishing meant that fresh seafood and game was never far from our table. Some of my favorite food memories as a child involve sun ripened blackberries, fresh dungenous crab, and picking baskets full of apples each fall.

My brother and I were expected to help with the garden by picking the produce, watering occasionally, and by mowing the lawn (which I hated) thus allowing my dad more time to putter in the garden (yes Dad, I’m on to you!). We also were taught to fish and hunt, and spent many hours out on the water catching salmon or tromping through fields in search of pheasants and ducks. I always loved the meals we ate, but never really appreciated the incredible freshness and enjoyment that comes with growing/gathering your own food until I left for college.

Cooking has always been fun and interesting to me. It was a way I bonded with my Mom, beginning at age 3 with thumb-print jam cookies which are one of my earliest memories of cooking. When I was 14 my Mom went back to work full time plus some, and the responsibility of weeknight dinners largely fell on my shoulders. My dad is a decent cook but he would always say, “It just won’t taste as good if I make it!” and encouraged me to come up with the meals myself. My dad is also responsible for teaching me to be unafraid of failure in the kitchen, and to keep trying to make things until I master the process. He is singularly responsible for breaking what would have been a third generation fear of pie crusts. (Thanks Dad!) He’d always help me patch the dough when it didn’t roll out right, and eat my pie no matter how awful the crust tasted.

As I moved around the country to attend college, I continued to cook for myself whenever possible and learned a lot more about organic and natural foods. Through several years of corporate jobs following graduate school (which included a lot of travel) I was exposed to a wonderful amount of regional cuisine and higher end restaurant creations.

Then I married Mr. B and found myself in a town that has three, count them: one, two, three good restaurants, one decent grocery store, and of course a Wal-Mart Superstore. All of a sudden I found a very good reason to put everything I’ve learned to use in a big way! Evolving out of my background and current location, my food philosophy could be described as follows:

I use fresh, local, minimally processed ingredients whenever possible. Overall I have found the quality to be higher, the health benefits to be huge, and the relationships with local growers to be very enjoyable. However, living where we do, locally sourcing food (or even just finding it in the grocery store) can be a challenge so I quite often end up finding speciality items online or when I’m traveling outside of the immediate area.

I choose foods that are organic, free of preservatives/ unnecessary additives, and avoid corn syrup and hydrogenated oils whenever possible and reasonable. In general I think that avoidance of ingesting trace pesticides and chemicals in my food is always a better choice, however I’m not willing to take this to an extreme level. Price and/or limited availability are still factors in my purchasing decisions.

I value homemade/homegrown foods and enjoy the creativity and quality that are possible through making and growing food myself.

A little bit of high quality, high flavor food, is more enjoyable than a lot of low quality and boring food.

So, that’s my general philosophy when it comes to food and eating. I promise to never be preachy or espouse the virtues of one philosophy over another – it’s just where I’m coming from when I write about the food we enjoy. And at the end of it all, I believe that since food is a basic and common element of human survival, if you can find joy in the daily act of preparing and eating food, then you will live a very happy life.

Phoo-d (phoo-d@phoo-d.com)

Mr. B (mr.b@phoo-d.com)

10 Random Things

1.) Why Phoo-D? Well it is a play on words for ‘foodie’ which is a rather annoying and stuffy term so the using ‘phoo’ as in ‘phooey’ seemed appropriate.

2.) I like just about all good food. The only things I really can’t enjoy are offal, stinky cabbage dishes, and poi. Blech.

3.) Mr. B and I met through family but we weren’t set up. If we had been we probably never would have dated just to rebel against being set up. Yeah, we’re strange that way.

4.) When I first moved to the Midwest it was the beginning of winter and the only furniture we had was a 2′x2′ card table and a mattress. I was still looking for a job and didn’t know anyone other than Mr. B. Oh, and we had no TV or radio. I read War and Peace to keep from losing my mind. It really is as good as they say.

5.) I wear a size 9 shoe, have 20/20 vision, and drive like a bat out of hell.

6.) I am very type A and a morning person. Mr. B is very type B and a night owl.

7.) I have no sense of direction and a challenged sense of spacial awareness. This means I’m often lost and inadvertently bumping into things.

8.) We both love to be outdoors and enjoy skiing and swimming even more than eating.

9.) The dorkiest hobby I ever had was playing the handbells in Middle School. Combined with a mouth filled with an orthodontic neck-gear and a bionater, those were not some of my best years!

10.) Instead of New Year’s resolutions I set cooking goals for 2009. They include: Learning to bake a killer San Francisco style sourdough bread. Fixing an Italian summer meal from scratch with homemade pasta, mozzarella, tomato sauce fresh from the garden, and pistachio cannoli. Mastering at least one French mother sauce.