Hey Y'all!!! My name is Alyssa and I have to say this has been a fabulous last few days for the cookbook freak I am!
First, I am a Redditor and I found a subreddit called r/CookbookLovers and as I browsed the topics someone commented about EYB and then I had to check out the site myself and bam I signed up for the year because I knew the free version just wasn't enough for me. I am enamoured already!
Second, I currently live in Melbourne, Florida which is about 10 minutes from the Atlantic Ocean. I currently live with my mom and my sister's dog Poppy. My mom is enjoying having me here but is learning that I have found my love of organization and am not afraid to use it. I redid her chest freezer and pantry. I am lucky to say I have lived in various states including Arizona, Illinois, and Kentucky and visiting many more. I have also been outside of the country and off the continent with my travels to Jamaica, Spain, and Gibraltar. I am currently unemployed and, while searching for work, building my virtual assistant business because I have come to realize I am a nomad at heart and being able to help others in my own way seems to be a much better use of my time and energy. I don't have a whole lot of hobbies anymore as I have been working long hours or multiple jobs for the last few years. The few that I do have are indoor gardening, reading, and photography.
I love food, and I love cooking. I have learned that I am sensitive to certain textures and cannot eat everything in every state. For example: I love raw spinach but unless it's in something I cannot eat cooked spinach. I also have become intolerant to peanuts so that has been an interesting transition in my life. I used to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches atleast once a week, but now I have the same reaction to peanuts as some have to milk. I don't necessarily have a style but I do enjoy making foods that can be easily eaten in a bowl rather than on a plate. One thing I would love to do is go on a food tour of an area and go where the locals go. My collection is small but so has the space I've lived in to keep them. I hope to one day have my own kitchen library for my cookbooks so I can get new and old books as I visit stores and Amazon (I rarely buy from Amazon unless I can't find it at Barnes & Noble). I can actually claim that I have cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal by myself from the Turkey to the sides. I fully understand what my mom and grandma meant when they would say they weren't hungry after making the meal because you spend all day tasting everything to make sure it's good, and boy was it good!
The last couple of years I have really tried to be more conscious of what I'm eating and would love to be more self-sufficient in growing my food. One of my more recent positions was at a grocery store just so I could save money on groceries because produce was so expensive I stopped buying the bulk of it and only buying what I actually ate. I have an app called Farm Ur Yard and they challenge everyone that uses the app to grow 10% of their caloric intake annually. I'd love to be able to do that. I also got very into menu planning. My menus would span the full month and I would create challenges for me to cook. So for example: July has 31 days I only plan half the month for cooking because I don't know what's going on. Then I give myself challenges and they can be anything from trying a new ethnical cuisine or making a favorite dish that I haven't done in a while. This is where EYB will shine for me. I love to use my cookbooks, magazines, and Pinterest pins for inspiration, but having it all in one place will be so much more beneficial and quick. I hope to catalog my own soon.
Also, I would love to have an Android app someday! Cookbooks are for marking and reading, but I sometimes would rather have my phone in the kitchen.
Also, Also, I saw a few pages back in this forum that you were looking for freelancers to help with indexing. I was wondering if that was still a need as I would love to help with this project. I have already indexed a few of the recipes I had saved in my emails and would love to do more. Administrative work makes me happy, for real!
Sorry it's so long there's just so much to say and I've not had anyone to say these things to ever before!