I was born in Aspen, Colorado, USA. My parents split when I was young, re-married when I was young. One set of my parents were active duty military, I being the oldest of four in this household, two younger brothers, one younger sister. The other set of my parents, settled where they started and grew from there. I gained two step sisters, that made me a middle child between all the children. I moved between each family growing up, exploring new cultures in some places when traveling and also the simplicity of knowing the same people since kindergarten in one town. I never lived anywhere long enough, until more recently. I married young, had four gorgeous children and though I have gone to school for many things and worked in the art, culinary and medical industry, I am happy that I was given the opportunity to be home most of the time with my children. Whom have inspired me to only push myself more in life.
In my free time I spend it being creative. I am a professionally trained chef, attended culinary arts school to widen my knowledge in cooking and attain any new skill that I had not already taught myself over the years. I have spent every year since culinary school using the skills I have learned and just exploring the idea of new creations. I love to present my food with art. Usually using my food as the paint on the plate. I enjoy creating many forms of art as well. I use watercolors, acrylics and charcoal for most of my creations. I enjoy sketching as well, but usually end up turning my sketch into something more with paint. The idea to write this cookbook came from the constant questions of, " can I have this recipe", when I would feed guests, family, friends and teachers. I always apply my upmost creativity when I create something, so I thought what a great idea. Be different! Traditional cookbooks include recipes and usually a photo of the food prepared. This is art in itself. The idea of changing the way the food was represented triggered so many ideas. I have created art for many of the recipes in this cookbook, each piece of art representing something from that particular recipe that inspired me. I applied many forms of ways to create art when designing each piece. I was inspired to continue to make this cook even more different than anything traditional and challenged myself to give each recipe its own unique name. It was a blast to create this cookbook and I have already begun a million other ideas for new cookbooks to come in the future.