Welcome to The Neurodiverse Gastronome
Hey there, I’m Dee! I am a parent, a teacher, and an AuDHD writer from SoCal who truly loves creating and curating culinary delights. Seeing as I am beginning this blog in November, I thought I’d start off with one of my favorite (and first!) recipes that set me on this lifelong journey of loving food. You will see above an image of my beloved roasted turkey, made every November, that I first found from Giada de Laurentiis. My culinary life traces back to my teen years, where my best friend and I sat around in his parent’s 70’s decorated kitchen, with mustard-colored walls, making flour tortillas from scratch. To say my parents were not in any way gifted gourmands would be a vast understatement. In fact, I spent my formative years eating La Choy Chow Mein in a can, and mushy fish sticks from the microwave. Yet, I was able to find actual pleasure in the making and enjoyment of meals as I got older. Some of it was my high school friend, and some was The Food Network.
The Food Network really took off in the late-90’s, when I was finishing up high school. Maybe cooking is a weird hobby for a couple of teenagers, but — again — I’m neurodiverse. When other people were partying, we were making pie from scratch. The Food Network was our go-to entertainment, along with AIM (but that’s another story entirely). Among those early stars was Giada de Laurentiis’ Everyday Italian. Coming on air in 2003, I can only imagine that it was 2004 or 2005 when I first made her Turkey with Herbes de Provence and Citrus recipe. My life’s experiences with turkey had, at that point, been a huge bird stuffed with two boxes of Traditional Seasoned Mrs. Cubbison’s, basted in it’s own juices. My mom had never been a huge fan of intense seasoning, to counter my detrimental love of salt, so the bird was completely unseasoned, unbrined, and dry as all get out. Every year, I had to reserve a half-can of Campbell’s Turkey Gravy just to get through the miasma of flavorlessness. When I was finally in charge of my own Thanksgiving destiny, I turned to my mentors on The Food Network.
By the time my extended family had gathered in my living room for my public unveiling as a bon vivant, I had already learned how to master homemade tamales, created my own chicken salad sandwich recipe, and knew how to make tortillas by heart. Still, I was anxious to present a turkey stuffed with oranges and lemons. However, that turkey became one of the most requested dishes I’ve made in the 20ish years since, and I still make it most years for my partner and two kids. The juicy, complex flavors complement almost any arrangement of sides, and definitely makes a show-stopping centerpiece. My partner also took to making a zesty gravy from the drippings in the past decade, which challenges the sides to step-up their game. And, over the years, they have.
My partner and I bonded over our love of cooking early on, and fell in love over a particularly hilarious apple crumble. As we have aged and changed, our diets had to keep up. I had stopped eating red meats in 1999, but discovered a wheat allergy in 2015. My partner, previously called “the garbage disposal” contests with a genetic predisposition for high cholesterol, which again changed our eating habits in 2023. So, even though our diets might seem limited at times, we have truly stretched our flavor profiles to their limits. Considering these aspects, you will see no red meat recipes, a penchant for gluten-free cooking, and a lot of discussion of trying to get our (also neurodivergent) children to eat this low-cholesterol, semi-vegetarian food. I welcome you! I will share my favorite dishes, talk about the best restaurants I’ve ever had, and share the literally hundreds of hours I’ve spent creating meal plans and writing recipes for all of the stages of our lives. From holiday cooking to pop culture cooking trends, I am excited to open up this side of my writing life with you.
Note: If you also enjoy creative writing, please check out my writing blog here! I talk about writing/publications, teaching, and social justice from the perspective of a queer, neurodiverse creative in today’s world.
