About Me

About me

I’m an older blogger and mom who’s pretty no-nonsense. I like 80’s music, word games and etymology, and Venn diagrams. No, I love Venn diagrams.

I try keep incredibly active despite my age and aging knees. I’ve done an Ironman triathlon, a few 50 kilometer trail races (including one at Burning Man), cross country ski all winter, and swim in the fast lane.

These are the things I believe:

• Love is love. You’ll see all sorts of rainbow foods every Pride including my rainbow salad, rainbow veggie tray, rainbow sugar cookies, rainbow sprinkles, rainbow bread, or a looks fancier than it is rainbow fruit tart.
• Harm reduction is better than pushing abstinence. This is true of everything from sex education to substance use to making cauliflower mac and cheese. I have spent the last decade trying to expand access to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to populations who have been disproportionately impacted by HIV infection. You can see me talk about my work as a doctor if you like.
• Climate change is real, deforestation is a problem, and sometimes you should put other nuts in your pesto recipe instead of pine nuts.
• Cultural appropriation in food blogging is a problem on the continuum that includes cultural appreciation. If I make something like ube crinkle cookies, I’ll link to other creators with the lived experience I don’t share.
• I am not always, no never, perfect, and I am always learning and trying to be better and lift up others who don’t share my privilege.

About the Ugly Duckling Bakery blog

I was recently listening to a podcast about the loss of biodiversity in the foods we eat, and I realized that I identify with heirloom tomatoes. My goal isn’t to write recipes that are the equivalent of artificially ripened but tasteless tomatoes we get year-round. We’ll get along if you’d rather eat a tomato bursting with summertime flavor that’s misshapen and imperfect. This tiramisu cake doesn’t look like it came from a commercial bakery, but you won’t complain about how it tastes.

I don’t use mixes or other things easily made from scratch, but I also recognize that not everyone wants to make homemade puff pastry. Some times call for convenience, like a can of beans in a weeknight garbanzo bean soup or pizza beans. When you have more time, I’ll still encourage you to make those beans, hummus, or peach barbecue sauce from scratch.

One of the things that I love about my day job as a public health-focused physician is that I get to teach and mentor future doctors and public health nerds. And that’s one thing I’m loving about being a doctor food blogger.

My hope is to bring you some of the science and history, tips and tricks to understand how and why recipes work, and enough foundation so that you can start to create your own recipes. You can see an example in these posts about baking ratios and classic cocktail recipes. If you love cocktails, please join the 52 weeks of cocktails challenge!

This blog and my story have been featured on podcasts like the Doc Working podcast, Eat Blog Talk, and Fit and Fabulous at Forty. I’ve appeared in the University of Washington Medicine Faculty spotlight and the SoMeDocs online magazine. And my recipes have been showcased on Foodgawker, Trivet recipes, msn.com, Kansas Living Magazine, and many others.

I try to post new recipes about once a week. I’m usually baking some sort of cookies, brownies, or bars every Tuesday for my weekly staff meeting. And lots of things on the site are a work in progress, especially my food photography, so I’m always updating.

You can sign up for my newsletter using the form below. You’ll get a short digest once or twice weekly that’ll include some meal planning, ways to use seasonal produce, and other tips and tricks in the kitchen.

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Some of my favorites

Check out some of my Most Popular Recipes or start here: