Erica from Itzy’s Kitchen tagged me in an interview!! Erica has an awesome blog, and she asked some really interesting and thought provoking questions. It was really fun answering these, but it took longer than I expected, so I’m going to postpone posting the food I was going to talk about today until tomorrow after my midterm! Hope you enjoy!
1. You seem to have a large invested interest in staying healthy through both exercise and eating well, is there a particular person in your life who helped guide you to these practices, or did you discover them on your own?
My mom definitely inspired me to have an interest in cooking and nutritious eating at a young age. I grew up watching (and often helping) my mom cook healthy and delicious home cooked dinners. We always had lots of fruits and vegetables around the house, but we would also bake cookies and order pizza sometimes, so I never thought that healthy eating was about depriving yourself or calorie counting. We hardly ever ate frozen meals or fast food, so I grew up appreciating good cooking. Because of her cooking, I’ve always believed that healthy food is supposed not only be good for you, but it should taste good, too!!
For exercise, I was probably most influenced by one of my best friends growing up named Vicki. Vicki was naturally very athletic and full of energy. She was the girl who would always outrun the boys in tag on the playground. Her excitement about sports definitely had a positive influence on the development on my interest in exercise. She is the one who motivated me to join cross country in high school. One of my favorite memories is when we were training for our first half marathon in high school, and we completed our first ever 10 mile run together on a Saturday morning. Something about running into the “double digits” felt like such an accomplishment! We hugged after we finished and felt so proud of ourselves!
2. What is your idea of the “perfect” meal?
This totally depends on my mood, but at this moment I’m a imagining a dinner outside on a cool summer evening with friends:
- Appetizer: warm flatbread with homemade hummus topped with toasted pine nuts
- Drink: glass of Chardonnay
- Main Course: cedar plank grilled salmon with lots of roasted veggies– asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and sweet potato wedges
- Dessert: vanilla cheesecake with fresh raspberries
3. What is your favorite snack and why?
Currently, my favorite snack is a banana with almond butter. It has just the perfect amount of sweetness I crave in the afternoon, and it gives me lots of energy for working out without making me feel too full.
4. Is there anyone out in blogger world you’d really like to meet and why?
There aren’t any bloggers I wouldn’t want to meet! I think would feel very star-struck meeting most of the bloggers form the blogs I read everyday!!
There is no way I can just pick one, so here is my fantasy blogger meet-up day:
- First, I would have breakfast with Heather Eats Almond Butter. This girl eats feasts for breakfast that are always so creative and delicious looking! Then we would make homemade almond butter and do yoga.
- I would go over to Kath’s house for lunch. We would make a crazy amazing salad together and eat some of her husband’s bread!
- Then I would make blondies with Veggie Girl and get some vegan baking tips! I also would like to ask her how she manages to leave the sweetest comments everyday on every food blog I’ve ever read! I think she has blogging superpowers
. - Finally, all food bloggers would be invited to my apartment for a potluck dinner! I hope that Smitten Kitchen would bring some meatball sliders (I can’t stop thinking about that post!), Sara would make pumpkin soup, Tri2Cook would bring that edemame ravioli, and Hayley from Buff Chickpea would bring her honey-walnut pie! It would be a very random and decadent dinner!
5. How do you feel blogging has impacted your life?
Blogging has been such a fun learning experience and impacted my life in many positive ways:
- I spend less time on Facebook. Blogging is much more interesting.
- I have started eating oatmeal every morning. I liked oatmeal before, but now I LOVE it. Bloggers have convinced me that oatmeal is a gourmet meal .
- It encourages me to do more cooking and baking, so I can blog about it!
- I am inspired by new cooking methods and foods to try everyday! Since I have started blogging, I have broiled brussels sprouts, fried tofu, baked my own bread, put spinach in my smoothie, etc. I don’t think I would have done any of these things without the influence of you wonderful bloggers!
- I am out of a major food rut!!! Since I have been in college, I have eaten cereal and turkey sandwiches almost every single day. It’s not that I don’t like to cook and try new foods, I just wasn’t motivated to put in the effort. Now that I see all of you eating wonderful things everyday, I am so inspired! Thank you! Also, my blog would be super boring if I still ate like that!
Ok, I need to show you one food picture before I go back to studying. This is what I was eating while writing this post:
Can you find the sweet potato??
Baked sweet potato smothered and covered in black beans, asparagus, spinach, and red pepper. YUM!
Also, if anyone hasn’t been interviewed yet, and wants to be:
- Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.” If a few people want interviews, I will randomly pick 2.
- I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
- You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
- You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
- When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
