About - Valerie's Kitchen

Hi, I’m Valerie. I am wife to my amazingly supportive husband, Paul, and mother to four mostly grown men. I started this blog in August of 2011 to document the recipes my boys have grown to love so when they flew the coop, they’d have this resource available to them. This is the reasoning behind the step-by-step instruction; so they could easily recreate the dishes they grew up on for their own families. Nearly five years later, my audience as grown to a level I could have never anticipated and this sweet place where I share recipes and family stories has practically taken over my life! In a good way, of course.

I’m from Northern California, born and bred, which helps to explain my over-usage of the words “awesome”, “killer”, and “psyched”. We currently reside within a 10 minute drive of the house where I grew up.

My focus here, as it is in my kitchen, is simple, seasonal home cooking. I share all of my adventures in the kitchen, from creating new recipes, menu planning, hunting and gathering, meal preparation, and serving the hungry carnivores in my home.

I am the youngest in a family of six, with four sisters and one brother. My mom taught us all to cook and she is still my biggest inspiration today, both in the kitchen and out. Her influence is why I get excited about things like Tupperware, any type of organizational product, freezer meals (thrilling!), baking from scratch, and great big family parties. And, most importantly, she taught me to be practical.

I’ve gone from being surrounded by women to being the only woman in a house full of men. This has lead to much confusion on my part as I struggle to understand the developing male brain. I’m still working on it.

Here are the people I cook for:

Boy #1 – Ryan. Everything you could hope for all wrapped up in a 6’3″ package. Smart, athletic, just a little bit good lookin’. We could have stopped here but …

Boy #2 – Jake. Ryan needed a brother and he got Jake. Jake is our artist and I can say with all certainty that he did not get this talent from his mother. Dad gets credit for that one. A few years later …

Boy # 3 – Connor. A little worse for wear in this shot I got immediately following a water polo game. Spark plug, athlete, and the boy can cook. I will take credit for this, thank you very much! Seem’s like plenty, but lo and behold, two years pass and …

Boy #4 – Adam. A little bit of all of the above with red hair and a ridiculous sense of humor to boot. Our world is complete, or at least you would think so …

Gotcha! Here is Heidi (left) and Bruno (right). This is what happens when your children begin to move out. Okay, now our world is complete.