This Gal Cooks is a food blog dedicated to my food explorations at home. I started this thing off through Instagram posting all of my most recent adventures, often featuring snippets of not only tasty food, but cute vintage dishware and tablecloths, both things I have been collecting (maybe too much of) for many years. I always wanted to take this vision further but I just didn’t have the time to make enough content to keep up with a blog. Now, I do have time. Just like hundreds of thousands of workers in the food industry right now, I am out of work until further notice due to COVID-19.
Since I have been home, I have cooked, created, and documented every single day. Not only do I have the time to cook and experiment, I have the time to take good photos, play around with my dish collection and truly make art that I am proud of. So here I am with This Gal Cooks- the blog!
As a budding food professional (of sorts), who loves cats, vintage dishware, monochromatic colour palettes, and all things pasta. It’s hard for me to label myself as a ‘chef’ at the moment as I am just starting to navigate my way through the food world and figure out what exactly I want to do while i’m in it.
Food has been my one and only consistent love, following me through many different stages in my life. I recall a project from elementary school where we had to select a profession and do research on the clunky library computer to find out how to become that when we grew up. At the time I debated between a ballerina, a fashion designer, or a chef. I ended up researching how to become a chef and wrote about going to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. My 10-year-old self knew what I wanted to be, but it took me a few extra years and a University degree in film to figure it out for myself. When I did make the realization, I went ALL IN. In 2019, I quit my job working for an installation artist and applied to culinary school. In the meantime, I searched around Toronto for some sort of job in the food industry, ready to do absolutely anything; as long as it got my foot in the door of this magical world of food. I was stepping into a space that I had absolutely zero formal experience in (not even a FOH or cafe job under my belt), and I was scared of being laughed at and rejected. I knew that that attitude would certainly hold me back, so I shoved it aside and moved forward. I reached out to a few places around the city and quickly received a delightful email back from Dish Cooking Studio. I am pleased to say that I have been working there since September 2019 as a Prep Chef in their daytime kitchen and Assistant Chef in their cooking school. Being around food all day everyday, learning, experimenting, teaching, and eating has made me the happiest version of myself.
This Gal Cooks is here for me to show and share what I love to cook when I am at home, from easy dinners, to intricate desserts, to wacky experiments. As a vegetarian, I am naturally inspired by the freshest fruits and vegetables, but my cooking is also heavily inspired by my Italian heritage, my passion for baking, colours (literally), and oftentimes vintage dishware and patterns. I am a visual person and so I often plan and think of food firstly by how I want it to look; what colours will make something pop, or what textures will work well together. I believe in this method, and you will see and make sense of it through the food I cook.
I am so pleased for you all to join me in the kitchen as I share my food experiments, some nifty tips and tricks, and lots and lots of pasta….
Enjoy!
Gabby
This Gal Cooks 