About Me

Pin It There are two things I inherited from my mother that bring me great joy: A passion for cooking and an obsession for digging in the dirt to make things grow.

I was raised in California's Sacramento Valley where the long, hot summers and deep, rich soil allowed for gardening in abundance and where cooking from and sharing the harvest of my garden was one of my greatest joys.



Now I live on the often foggy north coast of California where growing tomatoes is a challenge and learning cool, short-season gardening has many, albeit sometimes hard won, rewards.

My passion for cooking, gardening and feeding family and friends has never abated. When encouraged by my sons to write a family cookbook, during the process of fits and starts, I discovered the world of blogging and Christine Cooks was launched.

With the acquisition of my digital camera, the outside world beckoned and all too soon I was hooked. Who knew I would be so smitten by a tiny, sleek, silver, digital wonder that I would travel way down this fork in the road before I realized where I'd gone? Now I'm out in the garden everyday, seeking out the beautiful, the bizarre, the unique, the sometimes cruel, often plain and always honest lives of the flora and fauna that grace my garden and this beautiful region where I live.

That I tend to get really up close and personal with my subjects may be attributable to my childhood fantasies of wanting to be very, very small so I could see what life was like under a leaf, in the shelter of a fern, or in a toad's hollow.



I use a Canon PowerShot SD 450 Digital ELPH, 5.0 Megapixels. I know I have a lot to learn, but this little gem makes it all seem so simple.