Food for Thought

Hello world!  I, Joyia Yorgey, love good food.  I love to eat good food, I love to make good food, and I love to share good food with others, through pictures, recipes, recommendations, and especially having other people eat food that I’ve made!  So, I finally got around to creating this blog in order to share my love of food with many more people than I could ever feed in my kitchen.  I hope that you find the recipes and recommendations useful, but I especially hope that I may convey the beauty and creativity that I find in cooking.  May this blog inspire you to really and truly love what you eat!

I only began seriously cooking on my own in the fall of 2005, after I graduated from college and got married.  However, my experiences in college definitely contributed to my growing interest in unique and creative foods.  First of all, the dining halls at Williams College serve a wide variety of extremely high-quality food.  It was there that I first grew to like seafood and realized that, in fact, vegetables are really yummy, even when not served with cheese.  Growing up in Kansas, my family had never strayed too far from a traditional “meat and potatoes” Midwestern cuisine.  And we really never had seafood, unless it had been recently caught in a local lake… and then I guess it’s not really “seafood” anyway.

During college, I also had the chance to study abroad in both Bangladesh and Morocco, becoming thoroughly immersed in each local food culture.  In Bangladesh, we had curry and rice for lunch and dinner and “omelets” with green chilies for breakfast.  I loved the spicy food, even though I think it killed some of my taste buds!  Everything tasted very bland at home for a few weeks after I returned…  For one special meal that we ate with a local family, we went to the market and purchased a large fish, lots of vegetables, rice, cooking oil, and all the other necessary ingredients and prepared the meal alongside them.  Later, I attempted to recreate portions of the meal for my family, with moderate success.

In Morocco, I was able to stay with a family in the Rabat medina for two weeks.  I was treated to lots of wonderful Moroccan food, including kesra (a traditional yeast bread), lentil soup, couscous with vegetables and chicken, and of course, mint tea!  We also were able to celebrate the Eid el-Kebir with our host families, including sharing in the sacrificial sheep and other holiday traditions.  I helped my host mother and sister barbeque chunks of heart and liver wrapped in fat and spices—so tasty (when you don’t think too much about the amount of fat you’re eating)!!  I also tried other of the sheep’s internal organs, as they are the first to be prepared and eaten, but none of them were as good as the heart and liver.

More later… =)