About
2
Who are you?
My name is Sara and I live in Pittsburgh, Pa with my husband, Toby, and our two kids. After 4 years studying literature, philosophy and feminist theory, 3 long years in law school and 5 years practicing law, I decided to change gears and stay at home full time to focus on taking care of my family and our home.
I blog about my food/family/life adventures here. I am a home cook (no formal training here, just lots of trial and error), and I find great happiness in the purchasing, prepping, cooking, preserving, and sharing of food. When I’m not playing with food, I’m probably doing some combination hanging out with the kids and Toby, cleaning, organizing, making to-do lists, running errands, getting lost, reading, debating, cracking wise and swearing like a truck driver.
Why is this blog called Cook. Can. CSA.?
I focus my kitchen efforts on local, organic and sustainable ingredients in large part because eating with the seasons and using the freshest ingredients around just tastes better. From June 1st through Thanksgiving, we receive a weekly CSA box from the Kretschmann Organic Farm in Rochester, Pa, and this guides our eating for most of the year. We supplement our CSA with mostly local produce, meat and dairy from the Farmer’s Market Cooperative of East Liberty and various staples from the East End Food Co-op. In addition to cooking, we are avid canners and we routinely buy bushels of produce from the Kretschmann’s and the Farmer’s Market and then go on wild kitchen benders that leave us tired, stained and splattered, and our larder full.
Nearly every entry on this blog falls into at least 1 of 3 categories: stuff to cook, stuff to can, or stuff from our CSA.
- Cook: Entries under the “cook” category contain recipes, some of which are original, and some of which are adaptations (you’ll find a link to the original recipe at the top of the recipe).
- Can: Entries under the “can” category contain recipes for canning, freezing, and other methods of preserving or “putting food up.” Some of these posts contain instructions and others do not; I include recipes/instructions that I have modified from the original recipe, but if I have followed the original recipe to the letter then I do not repost the recipe (due to copyright laws) and instead provide only a link to the book or blog I referenced.
- CSA: Entries under the “CSA” category include pictures and descriptions of the items we received from our CSA.
Didn’t this blog used to be called Ma Vie En Food?
Yes, and all of the posts that were published under the old title are still here. I changed the blog’s name in August 2012 for a few reasons. First of all, when I started the blog back in June 2010, I didn’t really know what my focus would be. After two years, it became clear to me that my focus was on cooking, canning, and our CSA (and where the three intersect), and that the title Ma Vie En Food didn’t really convey what this blog is about. Second, Ma Vie En Food might make one think that this is a blog primarily about french cooking, which it is not. Lastly, Ma Vie En Food is a bit of a mouthful to say, and I worried that it sounded a bit pretentious, which wasn’t what I was going for.
That said, I called the blog Ma Vie En Food back in the beginning because I wanted to use this space to chronicle my life in food. Even though the name of the blog has changed, it is still the case that food is inextricably tied to my life, my family and my stories; as a result, much of what you will find here is focused on food, but some posts are family-centric and some are just my ramblings about things tangentially related to food.
I have a question/comment — how can I get in touch with you?
I’d be happy to hear from you! You can contact me by posting a comment to any of the posts or pages on this blog, and I will do my best to respond quickly. Or, you can shoot me an email at cookcancsa@gmail.com.
Anything else?
I love to make lists. Here is a list of things that make me happy.
- Fiestaware
- Homemade pickles
- Vintage dishes and cocktail glasses
- Cast iron pots and pans
- Hard cider
- Butter
- Mason jars
- Toby, especially when he’s making dippy eggs for me on Saturday morning
- Sour cream
- Red chile flakes
- Tomatoes
- Chatting with the kids while they sit at the kitchen counter and watch us cook
- My bright red kitchen tools, especially my pasta machine
- Making huge batches of stew on cold weekends
- Vintage pyrex mixing bowls
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