About Me

Welcome! Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.  Please remember to leave comments and feedback before you go.

Who I am:  Like many women, I define myself primarily by my familial role as wife and mother.  I married young to my high school sweetheart and we started our family almost immediately.  Almost 17 years of marriage and 4 children later, I’m still convinced we are perfect for each other.  I have three girls ranging in age from 15 to 11 and a two-year old boy.  My love and concern for the health and well being of my family is the driving force behind my obsession with healthy, organic foods.

Other ways I define myself are through my accomplishments.  Although I am not currently in a teaching position, I hold a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a Master’s degree in Education.  My passion is teaching writing and literary analysis to high school students, especially seniors.  For now, I’m at home with my son and challenging myself to begin a writing career.  This blog is allowing me to practice my writing chops, find my voice, and share my passions.

Eating Habits:  I eat a plant-based diet with some occasional animal products such as dairy, eggs, and even more rarely, fish.  Any animal products that are included in my diet are organic, free-range, vegetarian, etc. I try to listen to my body and trust it to be my voice of reason.  I dislike labels to live up to and don’t really align myself with a particular political agenda.

Who I am not: I am most definitely not a trained chef or nutritionist and I really hate to exercise, though I am trying to work on that last one.  The recipes posted here are a combination of adapted recipes from family and friends or are my own (or my husband’s) creations.  If a certain recipe posted has been inspired or adapted from something I have read or watched, it will be duly noted.

My Passions / Obsessions:  Food, Eating, Cooking, Gardening, Writing, Reading, Scrabble, The Food Network, Social Networking, Music, Documentaries, Museums, Historical Landmarks, Nutrition, Health, Creativity, Organization, Preserving, Canning, Spicy Food, Herbal Remedies, The Beach, Seashells, Paddleboarding, Organics, My iPad, Photography, Home-Grown or Local Produce, Farmer’s Markets,  Whole Foods, Health Food Stores, Greenwise.

Why Goblin Kitchen:  No, I don’t think I have a family of trolls running around South Florida though that’s what the guys at work are saying to my husband.  Do any of you realize how difficult it is to find a unique blog name that 500 eager bloggers haven’t already claimed?  In pursuit of the perfect moniker for my eloquent self-expressions, I turned to poetry and literature.  My fellow lit majors should be familiar with Christina Rossetti’s poem, Goblin Market in which two proper sisters are tempted by sumptuous fruits and vegetables being peddled by little goblin men.  Despite being warned of the dangers associated with consuming the goods sold by these men, one of the sisters falls into temptation, buying and eating the forbidden food.  She begins to obsess and crave over the fruit but soon realizes that she can no longer hear the cry of the men and therefore can never purchase from them again.  She begins to slowly waste away much to the other sister’s dismay.  Out of desperation, the concerned sister goes to the goblin men and purchases fruit for the dying sister.  She returns with the fruit and upon its consumption, the dying sister immediately improves.

The Original Temptation

For whatever reason, the poem stuck with me as I pondered names.  The idea of temptation and what happens when one gives into those temptations is fascinating to me because we all struggle with being tempted, especially when it comes to food,  almost on a minute by minute basis.  I firmly believe that our government, our food industry, the companies that are trusted households names do not have our best interest at heart, that they try to convince us that the American diet is fine, when in fact it is killing us.  Wholesome organic foods are often vilified in the media as fake, unnecessary, or just too costly all while Americans keep getting fatter and sicker.  Plant based diets are labeled as too restrictive and unhealthy as people waste away from cancer or die suddenly from heart attacks.  I focused on the ending of the poem, where the dying sister is healed by the goblin’s fruit.  It could be argued that consuming the food in the first place is what made her sick but I take the contrary view, that she became sick only after being denied more (it’s a stretch – a big stretch but literature is always more about interpretation and argument than truth).  Do you see where I am going with this?  I think that American Society is very much like the sister – sick (and fat) because they not eating what their bodies truly need, which is less meat and more plants, less processed and packaged junk and more whole, natural organic foods.  We are allowing ourselves to be tempted by all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons.  So, to finally get to the point, Goblin Kitchen is about allowing ourselves to be tempted by what we know we should be eating and giving in to the lifestyle that we should be practicing instead of going along with what government, commerce, and society is trying to push on us.