Some people live to eat, others eat to live.
From a very young age eating was not my priority. I had a childlike palette up until my teens and vegetables were not in my vocabulary or in my stomach for that matter - except potatoes. I've always loved them in every way; flat, roasted, smashed you name it. Once, when I was younger my cousin and I devised a plan to feed the dog our vegetables without my aunt knowing - we succeeded, and the dog was thrilled to eat it as much as we were not. We were never caught but we didn't do again. I promise.
I ate a lot of junk and biscuits and typically ate one meal a day. This, as well as genetics, probably was one of the reasons why I was such a tiny kid. My parents tried all the methods possible to get me to eat; sitting with me for hours until I ate, cooking different meals, even visiting a doctor. Nothing really worked, because no matter what tried, I just never felt hungry and if I wasn't hungry, I didn't feel the need to eat.
At 13 I weighed a max of 25kgs (55lbs), at 18 years old I weighed 35kgs (77lbs). When I look at pictures of myself as a child or teen, I see now how bad it was, but the thing was I never thought I had an eating issue. I wasn't bulimic, anorexic or purposely not eating. I just had different eating habits.
I started enjoying food in my twenties, but I still limited my variety. I slowly learned a handful of dishes whilst still living with my family in South Africa - my mother and elder sister are the star cooks. I, on the other hand was the family baker. I live for cake. So, learning to cook real dishes was not at the top of my list. I knew all the basics, how to chop, cut, sauté, etc. just not grand meals.
When I arrived in America, things slightly changed. I was exposed to a lot of different foods. My palette began to change. A large contribution to this was that I found Fast Food in America truly a letdown - only a handful are an exception and even then, I have no craving for it. This made the urge to eat good meals an easy choice.
My host family are great cooks, they had made an array of healthy flavorful meals, and this contributed to my exploration of food. Now that I have my own home, I find myself cooking ALL THE TIME, and really enjoying it too. I find myself watching more cooking shows then I ever have before and spending a great amount of time creating recipes.
I feel like I've gone from one extreme to the other. I have made all kinds of curries, fresh vegetables, grilled meat, pizzas and breads. I didn't know how fun it is to cook and eat until now and so I've decided to start documenting some of the meals I make, hoping others would enjoy them too. Food doesn't need to be complicated or over the top to look and taste great and turns out healthy meals are just as delicious as a burger and fries.
You can follow along my food journal to create some of these dishes or do what I do and change things up and substitute according to your liking.
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