Welcome!

Hey everyone,

So I figured the best place to start would be to give you an idea about myself. So I'll start with the boring stuff, My name is Juliana I am 21 years young and I was born and raised in East Hampton, NY and now live part time in Charlotte, NC. I am studying Public Health with a concentration in Women and Gender studies and Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. After a busy day of studying and being an active member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority and a handful of other organizations on campus what I look forward to most is cooking dinner and enjoying a glass or a few of red wine. I find cooking to be a stress relieving and a great way to end the day. I blame my love for food on my amazing mother, some of the most memorable moments I have of my childhood where around the dinner table. Of the few rules in my house growing up the most important one was that for one hour of our day we turned off the TV put our phones away and sat down as a family to eat dinner. Since I can remember I've loved to cook as well as suffer the consequences; eat! In my opinion I have a palate beyond most 21year old college students; again this is hugely because of my mother. My mom being a single working mom had only time to make one meal, so as kids my older sister Roxanne and I ate what she put on the table for the three of us and that was that. Another one of my mothers rules was you cant say you don't like it until you try it, this is what started my adventurous eating. And because of this adventurous eating there is a very short list of things I don't like, and as of now the only thing on this list Mayonnaise. I love different flavors, new combinations of flavors and most of all I love trying things I have never had before. I have been very lucky to have traveled all over the world including a few countries in Africa, Asia, South Pacific, the Caribbean, Europe, and Central America. In all the places I've been I have had some meals that I wasn't exactly sure what i was eating and, some meals that i have been trying to recreate since that first bite. I have no formal training when it comes to cooking besides a few informal classes, everything else I've learned largely from watching the Food Network, who recently started following me on twitter!!! So that's me in nut shell. Look out for my next post which will be about what to expect from Everyday Gourmet.

-Juliana