Being born in the Philippines and raised as a military brat, I was exposed to multiple cultures and delicious, bold flavors from around the world as a kid. The running joke when my parents would host parties at the house was that the United Nations was coming together.
We had every type of food imaginable at these gatherings. And on the regular, my Filipina mom and Black American dad from the South made sure there was no shortage of filling, amazing meals at home.
So, it’s strange to me that it’s taken me so long to arrive at a deep interest in food on my own journey through life.
Side note: it may have taken this long because I’m what people might call a Renaissance Soul. I have virtually unlimited interests, and my professional life reflects that. I went to school for accounting. Then for fine arts. Then for advertising. Then real estate.
I’ve worked in marketing, fashion, and technology. I’ve owned a cleaning business, a printing business, a photography studio, a design agency, etc.
But, back to food. Something happened that made my relationship with it unignorable for me.
Prior to the pandemic, I cooked for myself maybe once per month. I was working long hours, and was always on the go, and my “fast food” choices became poorer and poorer as I got busier and busier.
Over time, I gained a lot of weight and felt myself becoming addicted to the processed foods I’d grown so accustomed to eating. For nearly two decades, I poisoned my body with bad choices, undoing all of the wonderful, nutritional food I grew up eating with my family.
At the height of the pandemic, it finally caught up to me.
At the beginning of 2021 I was feeling worse than I ever had in my life. I had extremely low energy, lack of mental clarity and focus, bouts of dizziness, lots of aches and pains, and just a general unwellness. When I finally went to the doctor for a solution, I was diagnosed with prediabetes, high cholesterol, and vitamin deficiency.
I finally began to really, seriously cook nutritious foods for myself (and research everything imaginable). Since that diagnosis I’ve become determined to reverse these conditions through cooking and eating better food that’s still as flavorful and enjoyable as possible.
I enrolled in culinary school to sharpen my skills, started growing my own food, started experimenting daily at home with plant-forward dishes, and joined this community to learn more about food, nutrition education for underserved communities, and the art of cookery.
My goal is to eventually develop the skills and platform to help others take control of their health and well being through learning to grow and cook food that excites and nourishes them. I’m calling this project Flavors right now, and am excited to see if it becomes a cookbook, after school program for kids, community garden project, or all of the above.
Instagram: @ishholmes
