Hi! I’m Jill. Building a food blog has been a vision of mine ever since I knew I wanted to become a writer, so if you’re reading this, WELCOME and THANK YOU for visiting my baby. I’m excited to share with you all the dishes I love to make and the kitchen/meal planning tips that keep me sane.
The Why Behind Pepper Me Up
I believe cooking can be both a creative outlet and a source of fuel for your body. As someone who’s always had a complicated relationship with food, I know how hard it can be to plan and prepare meals that leave me full and satisfied without feeling guilty or shameful. But learning to cook has been my ultimate medicine. Through multiple restaurant jobs and many years failing and succeeding in my own kitchen, I’ve realized that we don’t have to sacrifice fun or flavor when we’re feeding ourselves or our loved ones. Really, we don’t have to sacrifice anything at all.
One of the keys to my cooking philosophy is variety, but that means more to me than just eating a bunch of different foods. It means being resourceful—putting together kitchen-sink meals with what we have on hand, or transforming that leftover Chipotle burrito bowl into a stir fry. It means trying new cheeses because they’re on sale at the grocery store or a new meat because it’s the staple dish of the country you’re visiting or a new vegetable you’ve never heard of because they’re freshly grown by a local family at the farmers’ market. Variety to me simply means the spice of life.
But aiming for variety alone can get chaotic. We don’t always have the energy to try out a new recipe (or to cook in general). That’s why the other key to my cooking approach is reliability. This refers to your tried-and-true dishes that you can put together without even thinking about it. Those dependable, staple ingredients that you always keep on hand and immediately restock once you’re out. The recipes and ingredients that you can rely on are what I believe create nostalgia and fuel your family’s food culture.
Combining versatility with reliability is the core of how I cook, and it will be the fulcrum of every recipe you find on this blog. Pepper Me Up is a spin on “butter me up”, because I want this to be a place where spice meets comfort. If you’re someone who loves to teeter in and out of your own comfort zone, whether that applies to cooking, travel, or any life experience, let’s be buds!
Some Quick Facts About Me
Geography
- From: Normal, Illinois (yes, I promise that’s a real place, and yes, it is very normal there!)
- Current location: Louisville, Kentucky
- Upcoming trips: Finger Lakes, NY Camping; Pittsburgh, PA visit; Norway Honeymoon
- Favorite places I’ve visited: Barcelona, Spain; Florence, Italy; Northern Italy; Savannah, GA; Providence, RI; Mystic, CT; Mendocino, CA; Oxford, England; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Seattle, WA; Washington, D.C.; Phoenix, AZ; Kansas City, MO; Milwaukee, WI; Chicago, IL; Charleston, SC; Rochester, NY
Education
- B.A. in English – University of Missouri, Columbia
- Focus in Rhetoric and Composition
- Minors in Film Studies and Sociology
- Favorite classes I took in college: Poetry of the Civil War, Sociology of Gender, Criticism Writing, Theory of Digital Media, Biological Anthropology, Trends in World Cinema, Classical Mythology, Shakespeare’s Histories & Tragedies, The City in Literature, Early European History
When I’m not cooking, I’m probably doing one of the following:
- Going on a trip/Planning a trip
- Reading
- Hangin’ with friends and family
- Taking photos
- Watching a movie or television show
- Playing chess
- Hiking, camping, or anything outdoors