Wisconsin

For the past 21 years I have called the beautiful state of Wisconsin home.  I am Ohio born, and Arizona raised, but Wisconsin seems to hold claim to my heart. That being said, it does hold it’s challenges when eating a whole food, plant based diet!

I live in the DAIRY state for crying out loud!  Cheese curds and ice cream are around every corner, and though they don’t really tempt me anymore, they do hold the monopoly for restaurants, grocery, and convenience store space around here.  I am fortunate to live not terribly far from Milwaukee, so there are a few natural grocery and locally owned health food stores within a reasonable drive.  There is also a vegetarian restaurant about 35 min from home that I do frequent.

The harder times come when we are “up north”.  In Wisconsin “up north” is the understood technical term for “our family place north of here that is our camp in the woods or on a lake.”  People even come all the way from Illinois to enjoy our “up north”.

As I was saying, when we are up north, there are absolutely NO health stores and most restaurants consist of Mc Donald’s Arby’s, or the infamous Culver’s, another Wisconsin favorite.  In short, I’ve had to learn to get creative when it comes to cooking up plant based meals.  Fortunately many major chain grocery stores are catching on to the plant based movement and have some pretty good options for shopping when I need any specialty ingredients.

Most of my recipes contain ingredients that you can find at these major grocery stores, and when I can, I will post links so you can purchase them online if you need to.  I will even teach you what these specialty ingredients are and why they are good for you!

So from my kitchen in the beautiful state of Wisconsin, to yours wherever you may be, let’s cook together and encourage each other to stay the course if challenging, and rejoice together when we overcome those challenges!

Blessings,

Lora