Finding Joy in Fresh Food

Growing up I remember my mom always cooking. I remember people always saying how good my mom's food was and it is very good. But looking back in many degrees a lot of it was processed in some ways. Cakes made from a box rather than from scratch. That can be a great, taste and cost effective opinion for many people. Of course as I started to grow up I never realized that there was a different opinion with food. Even going into my early twenties I still was eating like that in many ways. Then I watched a few movies over a period of time and started to change my course of life. One being 'The Bucket list'. About a man dying who makes a list of things to do before you die. It started to thinking about the same thing as well. The other two being, 'Julie and Julia' and 'Eat pray love'. It was about that time that I started to see that food could be something different, something that brings great joy and happiness to people. And I wondered if I could do the same thing.

Then I watched a tv show called 'Tosca: Flexing at 49'. Tosca Reno is the author of the eat-clean diet. And she had a reality show about her journal to being a physique competitor at 49. Her ideas and thoughts about food and eating intrigued me. I had always been a heavier girl so I was always up to trying the next popular diet. And I bought her cookbook. One of my things on my bucket list was to cook all the recipes from 5 cookbooks. Her cookbook was so outside my comfort zone I decided to do hers as one of mine. It was food that I was not use to it, taste that my taste buds had to adjust to.

In that cookbook she had a salsa recipe or what most people would consider Pico do gallo. I had only tried salsa from the jar, and this was not what I was use to. But to my surprised I loved it. I found myself making it over and over again. Making it a little better each time that I made it.

Then one summer my family and I went away for a week together to some cottages that we had rented. Everyone toke turns cooking dinner each night. My family of course tried to cook too much all the time. I wanted to help so I said I would make the one thing I knew for sure how to make, my salsa recipe. I hadn't really cooked for any one before that. I had made some things for an ex-boyfriend of mine, who always put me down and so he always found something wrong with my food. So when I made it for them I figured that they would hate it as well. Figured that I just couldn't cook well. But much to my surprise, they loved it, really loved it. And every time since then that people are making things for a dinner they always ask me to make it. It was the first time that I sow people have joy with food that I had made. It was the first time that I realized that cooking fresh can be better than anything processed. It changed my thinking direction ever since then. I then started to make everything from scratch. Now there is little processed foods that I use. I know how much joy that food can bring all starting from that one dish. While processed foods can be a good opinion. At the same time truly fresh food can so much better than any processed foods ever could. Food can not only feed your body, but you soul, your heart and bring joy to yourself and others. If you just try, go out of your comfort zone and don't doubt yourself.