Why “Have Kitchen, Will Feed”?
Because I really like serving people. I’m much more comfortable helping set up a party than actually mingling, at cleaning up after church than being the greeter, at opening my home to friends and strangers than starting conversations on the bus. Have Kitchen, Will Feed sums up how I want to live my life and express my faith – if I have something, I want to use it to help others.
What do you write about?
I write about things that impact me, stories my family or friends might want to know, topics I consider important and how feeding people plays into my life.
What do you do with the rest of your life?
I’m a med student, I help run a clinic for torture survivors (The Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights), I tutor, I dance, I help host a bible study, I run. I volunteer and travel and go where God wants. I study a lot and sometimes make my bed.
Why so much about food?
I like feeding people. It makes me feel productive and useful and it’s a totally different aspect of my life than medical school.
Why did you switch from a food-only blog to an ‘everything’ blog?
Because I discovered I didn’t just want to talk about food. Food plays an important role in my life, but it’s not everything, and sometimes I want to share other stories or thoughts.
What cookbooks do you own?
Surprisingly few. My parents have a wonderful shelf that I raid whenever I’m on the west coast, but these are the only cookbooks I actually own.
Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management
Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking
Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts
What do you eat?
Mostly roasted vegetables, oatmeal, greek yogurt and deli lunch meat. Almost all of the baked goods you see on this site are eaten by other people. I don’t particularly like cake, cookies, pie, or other sweets. (Except ice cream. I eat that non-stop.) In reality, I eat boring.
What makes you happy?
Seeing my cat asleep on my bed. I talk to her in a ridiculous voice, and she doesn’t make fun of me for it.
How did you learn to bake and/or cook?
Well, I am not a very good baker or cook. I *can* bake and I *can* cook, which is more than most people my age, apparently, so I think it seems unnecessarily unusual that food comes out of my kitchen. My mother taught me to cook and my grandmother taught me to bake. I also read through several cookbooks, start to finish, because I ran out of novels. On the same note, I can also knit, sew, darn, iron, crochet, garden and dust. And I can roof.
How do you find time to use your kitchen?
It’s a priority for me. I find cooking and baking relaxing, so I do that when other people might be watching tv or going out with friends. If you really want to find the time to do something, you usually can.
How do you stay skinny when you bake so much?
Once I moved away from home, I discovered I am more or less incapable of cooking for less than six people at a time. When I cook for myself, I end up eating the same thing for six days straight. I’ve discovered that if I bake, I can give it away more easily. That’s why I bake so much. One week, cookies went to the hospital for my residents and other med students, to the USPS, to deliver to a friend in the Middle East, to my bible study group and to a study party.
Wow. Your photos are crappy. How do you take them?
I take my photos with whatever is most handy. Unfortunately, I am not talented at photo taking, I do not have a good camera (quite a few of my photos are from my phone) and I cook and photograph at night, when the light is no good. I take photos for documentation purposes, to remind me what I’ve cooked and what was good, so they serve that purpose. My food photostream is here. Week in Photos is here.
Do you post regularly?
No. While sometimes I’d love to have a regular posting schedule, and I’ve made attempts at it in the past, the reality is blogging is not my life, or my job, or even my part-time job. For a longer discussion of this topic, read Life Happens.
How did you know I was craving chocolate/butter/broccoli/potatoes/lemonade?
Mind reading.