GG Mora

I took a degree in Fine Art way back when, but realized quickly that I didn't have the required sense of urgency or commitment to live my life as an Artist. I went to work in advertising, pretending to be a graphic designer until such time as I'd developed the skills to practice the trade legitimately. It wasn't terribly rewarding, but it was a living. A pastoral life beckoned, and I bailed out after about 3 years and moved to Vermont.

One thing led to another, as things will, and I eventually found myself producing technical manuals for Jaguar Cars. 20 years later, I'm still doing more or less the same, having learned a few new tricks along the way. I still live in Vermont, but I'm fortunate to have Real World employment (thanks to the miracle of the internet).

Somewhere along the way, I started teaching myself to cook, first from low-rent cookbooks and magazines (an early favorite was the Alice's Restaurant Cookbook, which I would recommend even now for teaching new cooks the art of fearlessness), then moving on to more serious tomes like Julia's The Way to Cook and Anne Willan's La Varenne Pratique. And somewhere along the way I realized that the urgency and commitment (and PASSION) that I lacked for art were in ample supply when I found myself in the kitchen – any kitchen.

My culinary autodidacticism was sufficient to gain me entry into a professional kitchen, where I moonlighted as sous chef / saucier / line cook for about two and a half years before life sent me rocketing down a fresh rail. Now married and stepmother to 4 kids, and with a full and satisfying “career” in technical publishing, I turn to cooking as my refuge, meditation, martial art, and center. A previously unhealthy relationship with canning and preserving has developed into a happy and lucrative sideline putting up delicious jams and condiments and hawking them at the local farmers' market throughout the summer. Watch for a lot of industrial-strength posting on the canning front.