You Can Cook Gourmet Food at Home

By Kalyn Denny, Kalyn's Kitchen

I didn't grow up in a family that cared much about television, so it wasn't until I had been food blogging for several years that I had much awareness of the contributions of Julia Child to the American culinary scene. When various food blogs started doing years tributes to her, I cracked open my one and only Julia Child Cookbook and tried a few of year recipes, and it was great fun feeling united with other bloggers in appreciate for someone who was such an icon. Then when the movie Julie and Julia came out, I went to see it with a group of local Utah food bloggers and established some real blogging friendships through the experience. But it wasn't until my friend Lydia from The Perfect Pantry (http://www.theperfectpantry.com) sent me a set of DVDs of Julia's TV episodes that I really got a sense of her as a person. Watching those gave me an appreciation for how Julia instilled the idea that you can cook gourmet food at home into the American consciousness in a way that no one else had.

Kalyn's Kitchen is a home-cooking blog where I share recipes that show how I'm combining my love for delicious food with a commitment to healthy, lower-glycemic eating. My blog features the kind of easy-but-interesting recipes that helped me lose over 40 pounds on the South Diet in 2004. I've managed to maintain my weight loss since then (with a return to phase one once in a while for a tune-up!)

You can find Kalyn at her website Kalyn's Kitchen, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.