Welcome to my corner of the internet. My actual name is Christine Hadden. I am an actual person. I'm a wife and a mom and I love food and more than that, I love to get others to love food.
I am not professionally trained. In fact, before I started this food blog journey, my profession was in medical office management.
How It Started
Even in my younger years, I was always the one cooking for friends and family. My phone (way back when people actually called people on the phone) was always ringing asking me how I make my chicken, broccoli ziti or my chicken parmigiana. So when I gave up my medical management position to stay home with my kids and found myself searching for a creative outlet, it just made sense that it involved food.
I decided one day to organize a few recipes in a way that was easy for me to point my family and friends to them. Then, because I was naive and the internet was much different back then, some of my recipes somehow found their way out there in the world and in search engines and people started engaging with my recipes.
This blog was very much a hobby for many years and in a way it still is. I'm not blogging for the purpose of a career. It still remains an outlet for me. Something that is just mine, that I am in charge of. Sure, I make a few bucks here and there but mostly this is about me sharing my recipes.
My Recipe Style
My absolute favorite dishes to cook are long and involved recipes. I love losing myself in a recipe for the day.
This however, is not what I share here. My friends and now readers, have expressed to me that what they really like is when I share quick and easy meals, dishes and shortcuts.
I have been told over and over by a close friend that what I think is basic knowledge, others do not and people like her really need some easy, down to earth meals to get on the table. So here I am, doing just that.
Accomplishments
It is really hard for me to toot my own horn so I'll just mention a few things I've done but know there are many more. I am a person who hates talking about myself so to praise myself and show off is not my style.
- Published several recipes in Taste of Home Magazine
- Appeared as a pasta expert in a segment on New York Live
- Won several Blue Ribbon awards for recipes
- Appeared on Kitchen Nightmares as a home cook who makes a better meal than the restaurant in question and YES, Gordon Ramsay came to my home to film!
- Provided content for several national companies including Smithfield, Ragu, Mondelez companies and so many more
- Freelance writer for several years for Parade Magazine