Thank You to All My Friends at Diabetes Daily
I am now a real Diabetes Daily family member and am absolutely thrilled to be here. I am off to a great start with all of the wonderful friends I have already made and all the new ones I am looking forward to meeting.
Many of you already know me as the chef who posts delicious diabetic recipes on the forum just about every day. I thought I would take a little of your time and tell you more about myself for my first blog entry.
I was diagnosed a type 2 diabetic about 10 years ago. I fit all the criteria; over weight, eating all the wrong foods and had a sedentary lifestyle. I was even lucky enough to hit the trifecta, as my doctor had referred to it; type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Lucky me. Well, it really was lucky for me. It saved my life and started me on the path I think I have been working towards my whole life, what I am destined to do.
I have been standing at the stove and cooking ever since I can remember. My fondest memories as a young child are beside my paternal grandmother while she made the most wonderful lasagna you could sink your teeth into. That was my inspiration for one of my most well received recipes on the forum. My maternal grandfather was a baker. He came to this country not long after the turn of the century with not much more than his young wife. He opened a bakery in the Bronx, New York. He was very successful by many standards. He baked everything himself, made sure the poorest in the neighborhood had bread to eat and never let the great depression of 1929 touch his family. I think I have inherited a combination of his love of baking and my grandmother’s love of cooking and it couldn’t be more perfect.
Though I’ve never had formal culinary training, I have learned from the best cooks and chefs in the world. My passion for cooking began early and I grew up watching and learning from Julia Child, Martin Yan, Jacques Pepin and Graham Kerr. I absorbed every word, practiced every skill and learned every technique faithfully. I did it all the old fashioned way. I did everything by hand. I never used any electrical appliances like food processors or stand mixers so that I could learn the feel, sight, smell and touch of what I was trying to accomplish. I have always recommended this method to all new cooks and even those in culinary school. Over the years, I became quite accomplished as a cook.
In 2001, not long after being diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic I wrote a diabetic cookbook “Gourmets, Gourmands and Other Foodies ~ Unrestricted Tastes on Restriced Diets” and even demonstrated a few of my recipes for a local morning television news show. My cookbook was reviewed by the esteemed diabetic cookbook author and James Beard Award winner, Bonnie Sanders Polin, PhD., author of “The Joslin Diabetes Gourmet Cookbook.” You can read the interview here:
http://www.diabetic-lifestyle.com/articles/may01_cooki_1.html
I had also begun my own personal chef business. Though exciting as it was, 2001 turned out to be a bad time to begin any new ventures. I had to put my ideas and my business on the back burner and as a single parent, let life take over. We all remember the sadness and heartbreak that 2001 brought us. My timing was off and I briefly took a job with an internationally known food services corporation instead. I quickly found I was not cut out for the corporate world of cooking. I needed to let my creativity flow. I continued cooking privately for close friends and family or by special request and took a day job.
My diabetes had been under control for a long time. I had been able to get off of all medications and just control it by diet. Unfortunately, be it age or falling back into old patterns or both, my diabetes caught up with me once more about 3 years or so ago. It was shocking and it was very bad. I began to come around again and bring my focus in on taking care of myself. Last year, about the end of July, I began my own blog. I approached it as a purely selfish outlet. I was going to cook myself back to health and share it with everyone, whether they read about it or not. I was very blessed. Many people started to read about my journey and they in turn, inspired me to push forward and hurdle over anything blocking my way.
My philosophy is simple. I do not believe that a diabetic should feel guilty about the foods they eat, deprive themselves of anything or feel different. I believe that by making simple ingredient substitutions, using old cooking techniques in new ways and portion control, we can eat like anyone else. My goal is to always try and create recipes that are family friendly and ones that the husband and kids will enjoy, perfect for company and guilt-free for the diabetic in the family.
One of my goals this year to update and reprint my cookbook and make it available to you all online here at Diabetes Daily. I am also working on a second cookbook and possibly have many more exciting things to come this year.
It is time to begin anew and the best way is to share my gourmet diabetic recipes, experiences and expertise here for everyone to read about and hopefully enjoy. I will also share my frustrations with type 2 and how I try to over come them as we all face so many of the same challenges.
Thank you again to my new family here at Diabetes Daily. I can’t wait to get started and share all of my experiences, trials, successes and failures with everyone.
Eat, live and enjoy life,
Chef Barrae
http://www.chefbarrae.blogspot.com
http://www.twitter.com/chefbarrae