Welcome to my kitchen
“I am beyond thrilled to be sharing my passion for local food and sustainable eating habits through my recipes and photos.”
I'm excited to bring you recipes from my own kitchen, inspiration on how to style your meals at home, baked goods and other items for sale, and just your everyday food porn! My goal is to create nourishing meals with ingredients that Santa Barbara County has to offer by supporting local farmers. In addition, I am available to curate private dinner parties, style food for editorial and restaurants, cater retreats, and help restaurants and individuals with recipe development. Connect with me here.
My journey with food started when I was younger and living overseas. I grew up in New Zealand for some of my formative years. I landed my first job with two other girlfriends at a very disorganized Latin restaurant in our little downtown. I showed up barefoot, having just come from the beach, and asked if I could have a job. The owner looked at me and said, "sure, you start tomorrow!". I think it's obvious how the rest of this story goes. It was a damn disaster. But the fast-paced environment was addicting and left me wanting more. So when I moved back to California in my senior year of high school, I continued to work in hospitality as a waitress through college and beyond.
When I finally decided to get a "normal job" at a tech startup in SF, I realized that the 9-5 was not for me and never would be. So instead, I was working for a cafe as a side hustle running their social media and helping them with marketing and events. That 15-hour side hustle kept me afloat and allowed me to keep getting up for work at the tech job that I hated.
A position to be the GM of operations for a cluster of juice bars in Santa Barbara became available & I got the job. I took the opportunity knowing that I would be one step closer to working with food and locally sourced ingredients. I learned so much about my body, the importance of shopping local, foraged relationships with local farmers, and learned the importance of ethical & sustainable practices. I became highly knowledgeable on sourcing high-end health ingredients, and I began to have a deep relationship with food & my body.
It led me to my current chapter: my passion & joy was in creating food and recipe development. I began working in kitchens around Santa Barbara, garnering the skills and experience necessary to ultimately get to this point now.
I am now a private chef and recipe developer and am beyond thrilled to be sharing my passion for local food and sustainable eating habits through my recipes.