Where It Begins

When I was a kid, I attended Lowville Church in Waterdown Ontario. My Grandmother attended the church for many many years, as did members of my extended family. Every few years or so, they put out a collection of recipes in the form of The Original Lowville Country Cook Book. 

Throughout my childhood, my mother and I would often reference this book for easy, delicious, and kid friendly recipes. It was my favorite cook book and I'd always planned to nab it from my mom when I moved out. 

Well the time did come when I moved out, and as a 19 year old girl, the cook book was last on my list after shoes and matching handbags. A couple years went by and I had still yet to take the cook book, but better so since I made the decision to forgo all of my material possessions and take a trip across the world- a cook book was not going to fit in my backpack. Luckily my dad convinced me not to get rid of everything, but rather store it, just in case there were things I was interested in down the road.

Down the road we are now, and upon my return to my hometown, I was able to revisit box after box of these things I thought I may be interested in. The handbags and shoes were maybe not too important now. But in the special box that mom had always kept for me; you know the one- kindergarten drawings, grade 8 diploma, photos of your first cat; there it was, The Original Lowville Country Cook Book. I thought it was the one that we had used all my life, the one with the dirty pages and fingerprints, but it wasn't. It was a clean copy, with all its pages intact, and a simple inscription on the first page.

"1991          With Love to Laura on her 5th birthday, From Grandma"

If you know me, you know what happened next...I cried...a lot. Grandma passed away in 2008 and seeing this book almost felt like she knew me better at 5 years old than I know myself now. 

Since moving to Vancouver and settling down a little bit, I've been changing my ideas on food; not just how it nourishes our body, but how it nourishes our soul. In a world of fast food, fad diets, microwave meals, and food that travels 30,000km to get to my kitchen, I wanted to rethink it all.

My challenge is to buy locally; take time out of my day to make food that is healthy, homemade, and delicious; and still lose weight on Weight Watchers.

What's not a challenge is to make the meals my grandmother made and fed to her children. Get back to basics, and share it with the people I love.

I invite you to follow along as I document my journey through this book and my reconnection to Grandma.

This is Laura and Lowville- Lo vs Lo