Hello and welcome! I'm Stacey and it is my hope that Kitchen Serendipity will serve you well with recipes, photography, and many other things food-related. I live in a little corner of paradise called Longboat Key and when I'm not in the kitchen, you can find me on the beach photographing families from around the country and world who choose our island communities as their vacation or event destination.
My passions for both photography and food have taken me on a relatively unscripted, unchartered, and primarily self-taught journey. Growing up, meals were a proficient rotation of roast chicken, spaghetti and meatballs, steak, broiled scrod and homemade macaroni and cheese, and hamburgers. We had a good, simple meal on the table every night, but I really looked forward to the nights our family went out to dinner. My favorite memory is that of the Modern Restaurant in Nashua, NH. It was a jump back in time when people still dressed up for dinner and family occasions were celebrated with a good meal. Oh - how I loved their menu, the Shirley Temples, and the announcements over the loudspeaker for "The Smith party of four, your table is now ready," and "sorry folks, we are now out of chicken pot pie," the latter prompting all those waiting for a table to groan in mock-despair.
After some mishaps in the kitchen when I was on my own after college (like mistaking a clove of garlic to mean an entire HEAD of garlic oh horrors) I decided to get serious about learning to cook. I subscribed to magazines, collected cookbooks, and eventually made frequent Saturday treks down the NYS Thruway to the prestigious Culinary Institute of America to take classes that were offered to "regular" folks like me. I learned. I started to give dinner parties. I even gave some fancy dinner parties and catered a large event. I started to develop recipes.
Motherhood took over and photography entered the equation. (So did picky-eating.) Gourmet dinners were a thing of the past and were replaced by an interest in nutrition, whole foods, and family dining. Today, food and photography are finally on the same page, but it's been a journey. Food interests change as life evolves.
My main focus is to develop interesting recipes that are filling, delicious, and good for you. (And we'll address picky eaters for sure.) It's got to look good as well! I hope you will join me? I would love to see you here. :)
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