I am a wife, mother of two a Certified Family Manager Coach and Home Business Consultant. If you want to learn more about me and what I do, you can visit my main website at http://www.SolutionsForBusyMoms.com.
However, I think on this "about" page it would be much better to tell you about my background in and philosophy about food.
Food is in my blood. My family has been in the food business for generations. My great-great-grandfather, who lived in Russia, used to brag that he was such an important merchant that he had a 3-day-pass to stay in Moscow at a time when Jews weren't allowed in Moscow at all. His son Morris, my great-grandfather, escaped from Russia (rather than be cannon fodder for the Russian Army -- they put all the Jewish boys on the front lines) and opened up a small grocery store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. His son Harry, my grandfather, took that little grocery store in Queens and built it up to a huge produce distribution company. My father, Jerry Krupnick, went in another food-related direction and was a pioneer in Kosher Frozen Foods. He founded Kineret Kosher (you know, the challah, latkes etc -- in the blue bags & boxes?) He actually invented the frozen challah. (How cool is that?) Most recently, my mother started a company that creates amazing gluten-free baked goods.
I have been offered a job, several times in the tea industry -- but that's another story. I decided to go a different route with my life, but I still have a (perhaps genetic?) passion for food.
I especially love healthy food. At the tender age of 16 I told my dad that I was considering becoming a vegetarian. He foolishly commented, "You? You'll never do it!"
Right then and there I finished my chicken chowmein and was a vegetarian for the next nine years. (My father has since learned not to dare me do anything -- unless its something he actually WANTS me to do.)
When I became a vegetarian, I started subscribing to Vegetarian Times and Veggie Life. It was then that I first became interested in healthy food. I collected lots of recipes, but I don't think I cooked much back then.
I was a vegetarian throughout college, and beyond, until I started keeping shabbos. (You can read all about that in my essay, "The Selfish Shabbat" by clicking here.) Once I started staying with families for shabbos, I grew to dread telling them "I'm a vegetarian." They would get so concerned!
I'd often hear, "Oh no...what can I feed you? You only eat vegetables!?!" I hated the look of worry in eyes of the women. They thought I never had enough to eat. And I couldn't STAND getting into debates about the ramifications, halachic and otherwise, of being a vegetarian. So...I gave in to peer pressure...Eventually I started eating fish...and then a little chicken....and then a little more...
It helped knowing that kosher animals are slaughtered humanely (thought there are those who still contest that assertion) and that by making a bracha I was helping to "elevate" the food.
After keeping shabbos for about a year, I met a very special man , and we started dating. Interestingly, he had Crohn's disease, but hadn't had any symptoms in a decade because he learned to follow a macrobiotic diet from Rabbi Meir Abehsera.
I found the idea of macrobiotics intriguing. The truth is that while being a vegetarian CAN be a healthy way of eating, you can also live on pizza and brownies and call yourself a vegetarian. I knew I could eat healthier and I wanted to learn more.
I read what I could about macrobiotics, but its so hard to learn from a book. Luckily when I went to Israel to learn in a women's yeshiva later that year, I was able to take macrobiotic cooking classes with a wonderful couple, Ginat and Sheldon Rice.
I do not eat an exclusively macrobiotic diet today, but macrobiotics does influence all of my cooking. I prefer whole grains to processed, fresh vegetables to fried, and vegetarian protein to meat. I also learned how to cook without dairy products (that's why I'm a whizz at creating pareve desserts, if I do say so myself :) and I learned how to use healthy sugar alternatives (I can't stand splenda, sweet n' low or any of those other artificial sweeteners. I love agave nectar and brown rice syrup)
I have to say that if G-d forbid, I ever became seriously ill, I would jump on a macrobiotic diet in a heartbeat. It can be a miraculous healing diet -- and the Lubuvitcher Rebbe agreed!
But, since I am, thank G-d, largely well, I do enjoy my chicken on shabbos and sometimes use real white sugar in my baking instead of the healthy alternatives. As I said to Ginat, "I have one religion -- That's enough!" I'm not follow to macrobiotics, or any diet, religiously (unless, G-d forbid, my life depended on it.)
So, that's my background and philosophy regarding food. I eat mostly vegetarian. I cook with fresh, healthy ingredients - *most* of the time. And also, because I am a busy mom, I try to cook in a quick and easy way. Also, because I'm the mother of a picky eater, I try to make many dishes where I can leave the main ingredients plain for my children, and "dress them up" for the grown ups.
HealthyShabbat.com is a blog I've created to record and share my recipes. I hope you enjoy!
