Who am I…….
Well oh well, how to start………….I am a very proud and very busy mom of three fantastically beautiful children, inside and out. I am a happy wife (when I am not PMS’ing), a loving daughter, sister, favorite aunt to many nieces and nephews(a bit sarcastic in a fun-loving way), BFF, a cheerleader (all kids sporting activities, music concerts), avid exerciser, an educator, volunteer, a lover of concerts and music, and an on the job trained in my own kitchen “Culinary Artist”, I think I like that term. I would like to welcome my audience and friends to my new profession as a food blogger of scrumptious, flavorful, and just fricken fantastic meals that are super heart healthy and easy to make. You’ll even find heart healthy descriptions next to the specific food ingredients. I am here to inform, educate, and hopefully make your heart healthier and happier.
On your Mark…… Get Set…….. and Go, Go,…… run faster, Go!!!!
Did I mention I like to SWEAR?? Well, I am not sure about like, but it’s just part of my vocabulary. I will insert symbols when necessary into my story/blogs to show you who I really am, sometimes full of angst, but will always remain transparent, trustworthy, and honest.
Why am I…………
Heart at Work, it is a play on words for “hard at work” because no matter what I am doing or making, I always have heart health and creative and delicious meals on my mind. My back story is glum…….or just fuc!!@@g sucks. I have had the awful experience of witnessing my father have a heart attack at age 42(I was 11), parents divorced two years later, then eight years after that my father passed away of another heart attack. I come from a family where cholesterol, heart attacks, and high anxiety have had a crucial impact on myself and the people left behind.
Having to move forward in a horrific fog, I went onto college and received my BA then onto an MA in Secondary Education. I met my husband, within days of being engaged, found out both of my future in-laws needed their arteries unclogged due to high cholesterol. Are you shi**ing me?? They both, genetically, have very high cholesterol, and so does my husband……. do you see where this is going?????? And now my 11-year-old son has high cholesterol, what the f##k!!!!!
How am I…………
Heart healthy and fantastically delicious. I have always eaten healthy and I attribute that to my grandmothers, who both loved to cook. But heart healthy recipes came from my maternal grandmother and my mother who cooked heart healthy and exercised regularly.
My Grandma D…My maternal Grandma, who had to quit school at seven years old to help support her Italian immigrant parents, learned how to cook extremely well and without a lot of meat because they were very poor. Limited meat per meal is the key to being heart healthy and it happened by default. I remember my grandmother always having beans and beets at almost every meal, (veggies, legumes). One of my most favorite dish’s of hers was Pasta with Lentils. My Grandma was also a concerned about health and wellness, I remember sleeping at her house on Saturday nights and watching The Muppet’s while she did her leg raises, LOL. She used to jump rope in her basement with the yellow and black rope. She was 75 at the time, BTW. She was a confident, independent, strong-willed and minded, woman who was a wonderful Grandma, fantastic chef, who raised two very strong and successful women. She truly was generations ahead of her time!!!
As for my mom, she was really into healthy eating and exercise well before it was a “thing”. We would grind our own peanut butter and eat a PB&J’s on whole wheat bread, yuck for a 10-year-old right??? I would go to her exercise classes with her and watch and exercise right along with the ladies. We ate lots of chicken, fish, rice, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and yogurt, granola, and definitely no “crap” chips. After my father’s first heart attack we became even more heart healthy, giving up salt, processed meats, smoking, well not me of course, LOL. Fast forward, my mom instilled a love of cooking, health, and family and I love and choose the healthy choice every single time. Once you know better it truly just tastes better, especially when well prepared.
My story wouldn’t be complete without mentioning women who have helped to make me a bit more fiery, feisty, more courageous, understanding, more resilient, more nurturing, and loyal: my two sisters.
Lastly, but certainly not the least, I met a man, a wonderful man, my sweetheart, love of my life, partner, and friend. Sometimes frustrates the sh!t out of me, but he is the best thing to ever have happened to me. I believe he was handpicked from a special man in heaven and I am grateful for him regardless of how many times I have yelled at him, swearing, trying to get this blog up and running!!!!!!!
What I am………….
I am living proof that through diet and exercise and incorporating heart healthy foods, that increase the good cholesterol and decrease the bad cholesterol, has given me the advantage of “combating heart disease one step at a time”( per my heart scan and doctor). I have to be Heart At Work for my husband and now my children. This is my life’s work, passion, and drive to find purpose for the senseless tragedies that have happened in my life. I want to educate and help others (and my future generations) live a heart healthy life without medications and hopefully without heart disease.