"Are You Hungry?"

CHICKS ROCK! welcomes Diana as a guest blogger who let us interview her about her newfound passion for blogging. Here's the first part of her interview:

Diana enjoys transforming ordinary recipes into guilt-free, healthful meals that bring pleasure to the palate. She shares her latest ideas, inspirations, reviews, interviews, and plenty of food for thought on her food blog, Between the Tines.

What inspired you to start a blog?

A certain career coach by the name of Kristina Leonardi was instrumental in inspiring me to start my food blog. I’m sure my answer doesn’t surprise any of you!

Kristina is quite intuitive about reading people. She’s gifted at helping when people come to a crossroad in their life and need to make important decisions about how to move forward. She truly has the ability to cut to the heart of the matter and get down to the business of seeing what a person is passionate about, what they should be considering as an alternate path, and then finding a way to help guide them to take that first step.

Kristina gently pushed me to start blogging because I had something to say and because I really needed to explore this creative outlet. I’m a Creative Director for the marketing industry by trade so I’m very used to dealing with the copy aspect of design. I simply had to rethink my work experience and apply it to something that was specifically for me, rather than the corporate environment I was so used to focusing on. I’m convinced that it’s all about rethinking who you are and realizing that you really can recreate yourself.

Why did you choose to focus on food?

My focus is on food because that’s where my true passion lies. That’s all I think about! I’m a food-and-healthful-eating-junkie. Throughout the day my thoughts swirl around my next meal, what I’m going to prepare, and how I’m going to prepare it. I drive everyone at home crazy because I’m planning dinner at breakfast time. I got excited when the last gifts I received were a black truffle and fermented garlic! One day I took a survey of all the magazines I subscribed to. Every one of them was a cooking magazine. At that point I was beginning to get the message.

To say the least, I’m known in my circle of friends as a passionate cook. I love to have everyone over for dinner and it gives me great pleasure to hear that everything tastes wonderful. I get a lot of personal joy from feeding people. The first thing I ask when someone arrives at my home is, “Are you hungry?”

I also have to mention that a number of my daughter’s friends often show up “unexpectedly” when they hear I’m preparing a meal (and I absolutely love it). I’m quite flattered when I find out that a group of her friends are coming over solely because they heard I was having one of my “dinner-events”. These kids are all around 19 years old, and they think I’m cool because I can cook!