If my relationship with food had a facebook status, it would be, “it’s complicated.”

A former vegan, vegetarian, culinary student, line cook and a current natural foods industry player, avid home cook and farmer’s market devotee, I’ve tasted all extremes, from haute to hippie and landed in the murky middle of foodie-ism.

Let’s get real for a minute. Food blogging is a funny beast. I’m not here to weave a fairy tale of seasonal eating with farm fresh produce and cheeses, because that simply isn’t my reality. I can point you to several other great blogs, that will let you enter a dream world of white plates, rustic styling and soft focus.

Loving great food is great, trying out new restaurants and ingredients just to have something to write about is fun, but when you start to listen to your body and start to ask real questions as to why you feel ill or crampy after shoveling highly processed crap into your mouth or polishing off a bacon explosion simply to blog about it? Well, the game changes then.

What you’ll find here is an honest look at plant based eating for a busy family. I hope you are a little like me in that you are curious how to eat better without the label HEALTHY. Maybe you are a new mom trying to come up with quality, low-fat, high fiber, eat-the-rainbow meals for your family. Maybe you are still single and simply want to incorporate more plants into your diet. Or maybe you’re a retired empty-nester who wants to start exploring farmers markets and seasonal eating.

What I’d like to offer you, reader, is a place to find inspiration when you are looking to pump up your diet with plant strong dishes, ideas and suggestions for seasonal produce, and a judgement free zone for when the best dietary intentions are met with a glass of red wine and a bag of microwaveable popcorn, because, you know, it is Wednesday, and you just pulled an 11 hour day.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Chat me up on Twitter at @maryeatspdx.

A small side note about this blog. Maryeats.com started in April of 2006 when I was living in Seoul, South Korea. Then I wrote mostly about Korean food, and when I came back to the states in 2008 I wrote a bit about going to culinary school and all the amazing food I ate while traveling. Since then I got back into writing on another blog, PeasePorridgePDX. You’ll find some of my old content here, while those posts might not have the plant strong focus i think they are fun, useful and help you get to know me a little better.