Come on board and fry with us!
Hey everyone, my name is Emily! I am a helicopter pilot by day and home trained chef by night. My friends are finally getting tired of all the pictures of food that I send them, so my cousin Annika and I have decided to start this blog. I oversee the cooking and Annika oversees the amazing photos, although recently she has started to dabble in the cooking side herself.
A little background on us! Annika and I are first cousins. AKA Our dads are brothers. Annika was born and raised in Belgium and I was born and raised in “the States” as she says. I have lived all over the US. My parents were both in the Navy, and now I am traveling on that path as well. My parents have established their base in the Washington DC area. Annika’s dad was also in the Navy, but ended up meeting her mother, who is from the Netherlands, so they established themselves in Belgium. Between the two of us, we have seen a lot of different cultures and places. Growing up, when we spent time together, we would always compare how things were done differently between Europe and the States. Now that we are older, we recognize how those aspects shaped how we look at and appreciate other cultures throughout the world. Seeing as I am 8 years older, my culinary outlook may be a little further along in the adventurous category than Annika’s, but it has been a lot of fun exposing her to some new items that she was not open to before. My favorite adventure thus far was her first raw oyster!
Back to the cooking part! How did my passion for cooking come to fruition?
Most families have their signature dishes. Ours does as well. My parents were both working full time growing up, so though we have some excellent family recipes, we also ordered in a lot. So, I equally love restaurant experiences and “at home” scratch cooking. Restaurants inspire me to try new things with the creativity they show. I started baking in college and loved how excited everyone would get when I brought yummy snacks to a Navy meeting or Aerospace study session (apparently not a lot of people bake in college). I moved my baking box with me from apartment to apartment. Now I bake WAY TOOO much for all my supplies to fit in just one box!
After college I joined the Navy. In the Navy, and all the armed services, enlisted service members have a specific amount of time they sign on to serve. When that time is up, they have a choice to make. They can either leave the service and go on to do amazing things in the civilian sector, or they can choose to sign on for another re-enlistment period. This is a big deal, and a long time ago, the navy used to bake cakes to celebrate a sailor deciding to re-enlist. The Navy has moved on from the cake celebrations for re-enlistments. When I took over my first job at a squadron in Norfolk VA, my friend who I took over for said she tried to bake for every re-enlistment she gave the oath for. I thought to myself, no way am I going to be able to do that, with learning how to fly a new helicopter and get a grasp on my new job. My first request to officiate the oath from one of my sailors came, and I happened to have an open evening the night before hand, so I decided I would bake some cupcakes. I was amazed the next morning of how everyone stopped what they were doing to support one of their own and the appreciation from my Sailor for the fact that I took time out of my schedule the day before to bake some cupcakes just to celebrate him. It was incredible how a box of funfetti cupcakes and 45 minutes of my time, while watching greys anatomy with my roommates on a Thursday night, managed to get 60 sailors on day shift to take 2 minutes of their time to come together and celebrate one of our teammates. This was the moment when I realized the power of food and how it brings people together, no matter who you vote for, what you believe, or if you disagree with another person.
When I moved to Norfolk, I also started hosting a small group of people at the house for Sunday night dinners. I first started these when I lived with my sister, and then it continued with my awesome roommates that followed her in the house after she moved to Florida for flight school. 5 years and many incredible friends, family, and guests later, what started as a small 6-person dinner (Yes, I consider that small group) ended in a Dinner party of 25-30 people every Sunday, with whoever was in town at the time. It created a community of support, sometimes love and romance, and forever connected friendships. Since all the people living in the house were in the Navy, between the three of us, we had all traveled to different places around the world and got exposed to the many culinary tastes that existed on our travels. I love Italian food, so I tend to specialize in that, but we dabbled in the world of Korean, Indian, Thai, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, and many more that I cannot recall at this time!
My next duty station after Norfolk was San Diego (I know what you’re thinking ROUGH SPOT!!!!). I continued the Sunday night dinner tradition, now with my sister again (I tend to follow her around duty stations)! Here’s to hoping I don’t follow her to Alaska (Although I am super exited to visit her there!!!!!). I scaled the attendance numbers back to about 10-20 people on Sunday nights in Cali. This time, I got to include our family friends from when my parents were stationed in Coronado with my generation of active duty friends, and I loved watching how at first everyone was really skeptical about the crowd, but at the end of the night everyone was out of their shell and covering all different types of topics. This was another time that I realized the best to bring multiple generations together to learn from each other is to offer everyone free food and wine. My sister and I grew up around spending time with adults, so its natural for us to be comfortable in conversations (I am probably too comfortable…….. I talk a lot when you get me going!). I would also leave random baked goods or salsa grown from my garden in our breakroom for the other instructor pilots at the squadron. I did my replacement a disservice, because the first thing anyone said when he got there was…… Are you good at baking? I should have given him a lesson before I headed to DC!
For the current chapter (now that you are all tired of reading this) ……… I am hanging out in Washington DC for the year (Spending some time with my parents and Annika of course). For my job, I am learning how congress works, but in my off time, I like to say “I’m making Congress Bi-Partisan one cupcake at a time”!!!!!! It’s a way to bridge the silence when I walk into a room with baked goods (some people think it is weird at first, but they get used to me!). I hope you find the reviews, recipes, tips, cooking disasters, and adventures we share with you on this blog entertaining and helpful. I am excited to share with you my family (I have a lot of aunts, uncles, and cousins), friends (my military friends are pretty much part of my family), kitchen disasters and successes. I hope you enjoy this blog and please let us know if you have any questions or feedback!