September marked our official two year “birthday” for the Carriage House Cooking School. This is a great milestone for any business, even more so for a small cooking school in Peru, NY.

Thank you to everyone for their support, you are truly appreciated!

Recently I have been brainstorming about how to provide more from the Carriage House. One of the goals I had at the start of the Carriage House Cooking School was to build an engaged and active community focused on solid cooking, sourcing great ingredients and supporting the local food economy.

With this it made sense to find someone to help tell some of the stories about us and our shared food community. To own to this I invited Alina Walentowicz, a local writer who I have been following for some time now, to share some of her amazing energy and foodie spirit on the blog. Alina is a foodie at heart and will be writing some blog posts for the Carriage House Cooking School.

During our first meeting to discuss her collaborating with the Carriage House Cooking School the energy to build a great cooking blog was contagious. I knew I made that the right decision to reach out to her and invite her to collaborate.

In her own words Alina has spent the last 8 years living in the Champlain Valley, clocking time as a professional writer on both sides of Lake Champlain. Growing up in a mostly “big box” retail community largely removed from its food, her perspective on farming and food production continues to grow and evolve as she spends more time living near and appreciating her state’s bounteous rural farmlands in and around the Adirondacks.

Here are 5 “fun facts”:

1. Born in NYC, raised in the Capital Region and currently living in Northern New York, Alina has experienced life in urban, suburban and rural communities throughout her state. Wherever she is, she's proud to say, "I Love New York."
2. Homeschooled through 9th grade, Alina transitioned from a class of one to a class of nearly 800 when she was 15. After graduation, she went on to earn her bachelor’s degree in English: Writing Arts and English: Literature from SUNY Plattsburgh. She believes in lifelong, hands-on learning and growth.
3. Alina loves to eat and will try almost any food once. In general, she enjoys comfort food and appetizers. Her favorite cuisines to explore are: Indian, Mediterranean, Thai, Mexican and Italian.
4. Alina has studied many styles of dance including: ballet, jazz, musical theatre, hip-hop, modern and tap. You might catch her performing her signature seated “Happy Food Dance” while enjoying a particularly delicious meal (a real crowd-pleaser in the high-chair days... admittedly, less so at 26).
5. She concedes to dabbling in vegetarianism for most of 2017. Though she realized this wasn’t the lifestyle for her, she still enjoys creative plant-based meals - but not quite as much as a savory slab of steak.

Feel free to check out alinaswords.com for more of her writing! Let’s all welcome Alina to the Carriage House Cooking School.