{"id":602,"date":"2026-08-20T00:45:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T00:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abetterversionkitchen.com\/?page_id=602"},"modified":"2026-08-20T23:22:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T23:22:34","slug":"about-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/abetterversionkitchen.com\/?page_id=602","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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My story<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because my grandmother gave her bread away<\/em><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

How a basement kitchen, a stack of cooking shows, and one kid’s lunchbox turned into all of this.<\/p><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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My grandmother’s basement kitchen<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My grandmother had two kitchens. One upstairs, where the family ate \u2014 and one in the basement, where she actually baked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That basement kitchen was where I spent a good part of my childhood. It felt like our own little world down there, just the two of us and the smell of bread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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She scolded me constantly for eating the raw dough. I did it anyway.<\/p>\nEvery single time<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Baking wasn’t a chore for her. It was how she loved people. She never baked just for us \u2014 most of it went out the door to friends, neighbors, whoever needed it. Bread was how she took care of her community. I didn’t understand what I was watching at the time. I do now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Photo of your grandmother, or her kitchen \u2014 4:5 vertical<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The long way around<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Late teens<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t start baking seriously until my late teens. What got me was cooking shows \u2014 I watched everything I could get my hands on and taught myself as I went.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Cakes first<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Then breads, then pastry, then just about everything. Each one because I’d seen someone do it and wanted to know whether I could.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Portuguese kitchen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Food has always been the center of how my family shows up for each other. It took me a while to realize I’d been absorbing that my entire life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Photo of a lunchbox or a swap in progress \u2014 4:5 vertical<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Then I became a parent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Three kids changed how I looked at food. My two stepsons came into my life at six and ten. My daughter is thirteen now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she was younger, all she wanted was what her friends had at lunch. The crackers, the cookies, the chocolate spread. And I understood it \u2014 nobody wants to be the kid with the weird snack. But I’d started reading labels by then, and I couldn’t unsee what was in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I made my own versions. Not health-food substitutes that taste like a compromise \u2014 the actual thing, made as clean as I could get it without wrecking what made her want it in the first place. It took a lot of tries. Some of them were bad. But eventually she stopped asking for the boxed ones, and that felt like the whole point.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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How I actually cook<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I want to be honest about this, because I think it matters more than any recipe I’ll give you.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not a precision person standing over a scale running batch after batch until something is perfect. I do plan. I do work at something until I get it right. But mostly I get in the kitchen and go for it \u2014 no fear, no overthinking, just an idea and whatever’s in front of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things fail. Regularly. A loaf comes out flat, a swap doesn’t work, something goes in the trash. That’s not a bad day in the kitchen, that’s the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I go too long without a failure, it means I’ve stopped trying anything interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re going to see the flops here right alongside the wins. That’s the part most food content leaves out, and it’s the part that would have saved me years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mostly, I want you to see that this is fun. Cooking should feel like play. If you’re intimidated by any of it, stick around \u2014 I promise it’s less serious than it looks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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What I mean by “better”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I still bake with sugar and butter. This isn’t a sugar-free site and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. What I’ve cut out is the stuff I couldn’t justify:<\/p>\n\n\n\n