Kitchen and Letters: An introduction.

They why's, the whom's, the what's, the how's and all the other questions of what is this blog for.

Hello and Welcome to Kitchen and letters.

My name is Iliana, I will like to start by saying that English is not my first language, sometimes it feels like it because I have spent the same amount of time speaking English as I have Spanish, however Spanish is my mother tongue. I say this because there are going to be times when my spanglish will kick in and there will be times where I will post thing in Spanish. I'm very proud of my spanglish, I grew up in a bilingual home in Mexico, European family on one side and American step family on the other. Went to bilingual schools most of my teens then moved to London, England in my late teens. Later you will read how I switching from one language to the other has become part of my daily life, I hope you learn to love it as much I have. Also most of my academic knowledge in this subject has been in English, however the practice was come in both. I wanted to write this blog in English because is the language that I'm more acostume to talk about this topic.

I wanted to create Kitchen and letters, because for me the kitchens go far beyond cooking.

Kitchens are the heart of the house where anything can be though and learned; from cooking to chemistry, medicine, agriculture: in other words the Kitchens are multidimensional.

Kitchens can explain everything that happens in a house, in our lives and why not in our hearts and minds. Food and kitchens are in politics, is true that we can VOTE with our fork, we do have the power to change how our society is shaped from our personal kitchens.

We cook with our minds and sometimes with our hearts or vice versa.

I learnt to cook very young, my mom worked long hours, and after school, when we were left alone during the afternoon, my brothers where either bored or hungry or both and being the youngest of 3, always asked me to cook for them before my mother arrived from work. Now that I think of it, there was division of labour even then, I always agreed with a condition: I cook only if one of them turned on the stove( I was very little and scared that it was going to exploded) and the other got the ingredients I was going to cook. Being so young the only thing I could cook was oatmeal! Eventually the menu grew and we did too.

Started cooking and understanding food at a very young age.

This event further than taking me away from kitchens and ingredientes, it got me closer to it. Eventually we moved to an organic farm, we learnt to grow veggies throughout the seasons and sell them to local markets early morning. I was a teen by then, fascinated by waking up so early, driving to the markets to sell our freshly harvested produce. I have been fascinated by markets even before I was a teen, When I was little I pretend to be sick to skip school and stay home to go with our housekeeper to the markets. I was always given free fruit and veggies.

I graduated as a Food Sociologist in 2005.

Food stories can flow in every kitchen, weather is a home or an industrial kitchen, there are always stories to tell. It has taken me 15 years after I graduated as a Food Sociologist from Middlesex University in London to decided to embark in this journey, honestly I do not know where I will land, all I know is that in for the first time I want to share my closest food stories.

I invite you to share your story.

I will like to extend an invitation for you to share your food stories. As this blog grows I hope you read and see that food is closer to us and in more ways that the physical nourishment of the body. And kitchens are the glue that keeps it all together. Feel free to contact me with your story. My wish is mostly to help "kitchens and letters" to flow easily an let them show me the way, the only way the have done for most of my life.

With good food,

Iliana Lanuza