ABOUT | A DAY IN THE KITCHEN

Hey there! Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Lisa and I am, quite literally, a Day in the kitchen!

The Person

I love food. Eating it, cooking it, baking it, photographing it.

Is it good or bad that I have more photos of food on my cell phone than my children?

I was born and raised in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, and then spent almost 20 years enjoying life under the California sun. My family and I now live in Hong Kong, which is synonymous with small kitchens with limited space. However, I’m not letting that limit the big ideas I can cook up!

I do not have formal culinary training, nor am I a nutritionist. I am a self-taught home cook who has learned from reading countless numbers of cookbooks and cooking magazines and watching others cook. Besides reading and watching, though, I’ve learned simply from getting in the kitchen and COOKING and experimenting and playing with food, and my passion only grew from there!

My background comes from the arts, having studied art and design in high school, then majoring in Art History in university. I then spent a number of years working as a 3D computer artist and animator, where I also dabbled in some HTML and website design and creation. From there, I spent 10 years showing people how to preserve and document their family stories in scrapbooks. Being a scrapbooking consultant allowed me to spend time creating my own family albums and it fueled my passion for photography.

My love for food and photography only grew when I got my very first smartphone! I could take pictures of restaurant meals! I could capture the dish I made for dinner! It was so quick and easy and addictive. I started sharing those photos on Facebook for fun, and to my pleasant surprise, I received a lot positive feedback on the photographs and requests for the recipes I had made. The positive reinforcement only motivated me to cook and bake more and post more photos.

And voila...here we are today!

The Food

What is A Day in the Kitchen all about and what can you expect to find here?

All the recipes here are ones I cook for my family, so you won't find anything here that we don't actually eat! Most of my recipes are free of gluten and refined sugar, mainly due to the health benefits and how much better we happen to feel when we don't eat them.

That being said, I don’t necessarily advocate one particular type of diet, whether it be paleo, keto, etc. I do, however, make a point of learning about them and taking from them what works with my goals in cooking and eating and overall healthy living. In general, I have always believed moderation and variety to your diet is important, and ultimately, I do what works best for me and my family…just as you should, too!

My most popular recipe ever on the blog is How to Cook Eggs In A Rice Cooker. Considering I wasn’t sure about whether to post this recipe or not, this has taken off far and beyond my wildest expectations!

Other very popular recipes that show the variety and breadth of what’s available here on A Day in the Kitchen:

Behind all the recipes I create for the blog, I’m motivated by real food, healthy eating, and flavors from around the world. The inspirations for the recipes comes from my family, my friends, travels, and just LIFE!

A Day Out...

Aside from cooking, I also love to eat out and try new restaurants. I got in the habit of posting photos of meals I ate at restaurants and became a sort of go-to person for my friends who wanted suggestions on where to eat. A Day Out shares my dining experiences at local restaurants where I live in Hong Kong or wherever we travel.

A Day Out is also where I write about our trips to different cities and countries. I hope you enjoy following along with my culinary and travel journeys.

A Day In the Life...

A Day In the Life is where I write about various thoughts and musings. I might reflect on events from the past, or share funny and odd things I see while I'm living day to day. The thoughts may be random, but hopefully, you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

Cheers!
Lisa.

Photography

Now that we're done talking all About Me, here are just some notes about the photography on A Day in the Kitchen.

All the food featured in my posts has been made from the actual recipes they reference, and we eat all the foods that you see (after the necessary photos have been taken!).

Aside from basic post image processing to make the photos pop a bit more on the page, there have been no tricks used on the food itself. They are true representations of the recipes I have made. I have not used talcum powder to simulate icing sugar simply because it photographs better. The roast chicken is as it actually looked out of the oven and I have not used a blow torch to “touch up” and brown the skin to make it look more perfect. The brown spots on the cheese on the pizza came from actually baking in the oven and were not painted on. While not all results may look exactly the same for you when making the recipe, be assured that I am not misrepresenting the recipes I am posting.

Photos

I'm thrilled if you love my photos! However, if you would like to share photos from my recipes, please make sure to credit the photos with
a) a link back to the original recipe post and
b) a link back to adayinthekitchen.com.