About

Hi!

Thanks for visiting.

A bit about myself: My name is Elana, and I am a proud wife and parent.  I’m the (sometimes) harried, but always grateful, mother of four active children.  To keep things interesting, I’m also a commuting  full-time lawyer. Welcome to my spare time hobby.

I have always had a profound passion for food and the culinary arts.  One of my fondest childhood memories is crawling up to counter-height to stand beside my Hungarian grandmother, baking cookies. Food and cooking are my channels towards relaxation.  The joke in my house is that I watch the Food Network the way some men watch ESPN. It’s my default TV channel, and I pore through cookbooks for fun.

My husband proposed to me by having one of the past winners from Bravo TV’s famed Top Chef competition (Hung Huynh) cook us an amazing meal in Manhattan, and then presented me with my first-ever pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes! (Oh yeah, I’m a shoe fanatic as well – hence, the logo.)

To dish a bit on the shoes (pun intended): When I was turning twelve, my parents were throwing me a bat mitzvah, and my mom had promised me that I could have my very first pair of “big girl high heels” to celebrate.  Well, I’m petite, and have small feet, so this did not happen.  After visiting several stores, (and many failed try-ons later), it was apparent that the big girl high heels were not meant to be.  I vowed that when I was old enough, I would buy every pair of shoes that fit.

It’s still difficult for me, barely a women’s size 5, to find shoes. (I had to special order my wedding shoes, size 4.5 Stuart Weitzman), but I’ve been known to come home with a pair just because they were on sale in my size.

I digress.  Back to the food…

I have always been cognizant of what I ate.  I was an avid “Weight Watcher,” ran, took step classes, and so on. But when I got pregnant with my first child, I developed gestational diabetes in my last trimester.  That really had me look at the food I ate in a whole new way.

After my third baby, I decided I needed a lifestyle change to apply to my eating habits.  I was looking for something that didn’t require me to weigh, measure, or count.  A friend told me about the Whole30* (a Paleo-centric approach towards eating and cooking), and a match made in heaven was born.

Since then I’ve tried to cook and eat mostly healthy, real, “clean” foods.  (Don’t worry:  Ice cream, wine, chocolate and processed foods make an appearance, but not as lead characters.)

This blog is about how I cook for friends and family, including what I enjoy making and what I eat daily, weekly, and for special occasions.  I may occasionally insert some shoe inspiration or crafty items in my posts, and workout/exercise information here and there, but the focus will be on mostly healthy foods.

I welcome your suggestions and comments, so feel free to drop me a line, email or comment.  I can’t wait to hear back from you.

XOXO

Elana

 

*(To learn more about the Whole30, please follow this link:  http://whole30.com/ )