The Miracles behind the creation of the Nourishing Foods Menu Planner

I want to take a few moments and diverge away from the topic of food and talk a little bit about how this website came about.  There are in fact a handful of miracles that made the creation of this site possible.

The first one is named Dawud Miracle.  And I have to say that his name describes what he does in his relationships with people.  Meeting him for the first time this past summer on the phone, I immediately felt as if I was simply talking to an old friend, catching up on the latest of our lives, and sharing what it’s like to be a parent and a business owner.

That first conversation with him re-sparked an idea I had started a year before during my pregnancy.  He not only encouraged me to follow this direction again and create a menu planning service, but also made it clear that it should be for people who struggle with food allergies.  It only made sense because this is where I have spent most of my time with food and cooking.

The amazing thing to me was that he didn’t make it a sales call and didn’t try to get me to work with him on my new project.  He simply gave me a ton of encouragement and hope that this could be a really great thing for a lot of people.  Moreover, my business as a personal chef was more difficult than I care to say while I was pregnant and increasingly so after Elijah was born in December 07.  I was really trying to do too many things at once, and Dawud as a father of three young children and a business owner, was quick to see that things could be easier for me in running my business.

The decision was simple for me.  I started working with him the second week of August of this year and everything was set to go this past week.  I cannot begin to even list everything I learned during this process – from technical aspects of learning php and using WordPress to the ways to create meaningful relationships with people.

Furthermore, when I ran into difficulties, problems or questions, he was always there to help me figure out the problem.  In the past, I have had a difficult time when I can’t figure something out; my immediate response is to get frustrated, think that it’s simply not going to work out, and therefore give up.  Dawud’s stick-to-itness, his immense knowledge and his shared vision of my project kept me going when I ran up against these areas of frustration in building the site.

Thank you Dawud from the bottom of my heart, for everything you helped me with in creating the site, everything you have taught me and for believing in what I have to share with people.

A second miracle I want to mention here is my baby boy Elijah.  Yes, all babies are miracles.  Ask any mother who experiences a being growing in her womb to the size of a watermelon.  And through contact of this amazing being after giving birth, any mother can tell you that it is truly a spiritual experience to see who you have been housing for nine months.  I knew at this moment that this little being, though created inside of me, was not from me; no, he was a miracle knitted within my womb by other hands.

I may be digressing here, but the reason why I mention Elijah in terms of this project is that he was in part the true inspiration for the menu planner.  Wanting to raise my child myself while running my business from home, the idea of the menu planner was born while he was still in my womb.  Without him, I probably would still be running myself ragged by shopping and cooking for people in the DC area, which is about a two hours drive one-way from where I live.

In addition to this, he was colicky baby whom I was exclusively breastfeeding, so anything I ate went directly to him through the milk.  A miracle occurred when I stopped eating dairy, eggs and soy products though – his constant and painful cries dissipated.  This was a wonderful discovery, but during the following months, I was in a constant struggle to get enough to eat because I felt like my diet was so limited.

When I started planning menus for the week instead of just showing up at the grocery store without a clue what to prepare, my life started getting easier.  Not only was I enjoying food again because I was getting creative about what I could eat, I also felt like I was finally getting enough to eat!  Ask any mom – this is vital to sanity while taking care of a child!

Another aspect of Elijah’s presence during the process of creating the site is that I would often receive inspirations for the content I wrote for the site or for blog posts while I was nursing him or taking him for walks in the woods.  This precious time with him was where I was able to relax, let my mind go and receive inspiration about what to write.

Another blessing that occurred during the creation of this site was that I was finally able to stay away from eating wheat after twelve plus years of knowing that I am allergic to it.  Wow, you might say, what took me so long?  Well, something I will soon be writing about in my blog is how allergies to foods can turn into addictions to them as well.  I won’t go into this here, but it is a very real concept which I have personally struggled with for over a decade of my life.

The problem was that I didn’t think my symptoms were that bad or that I could keep them in check by eating wheat in moderation.  However, for much of my adult life, I was completely unaware that allergies to foods could actually be contributing to my extreme emotional mood swings and at times, deep depressions.

It was funny how it happened.  My husband brought home a bread machine and we started making bread.  I knew it was mostly for him, but I couldn’t help myself and ended up indulging a bit too much in that yummy loaf of fresh bread.  The next day though, I was stuck in a deep depression.  I somehow made the connection to the bread I had eaten the day before and started doing some research on depression and food allergies.  I found some great information and was convinced that food can greatly disturb our minds and emotions if we are eating foods we’re allergic to.

Hearing something is one thing – that food allergies can cause depression or mood swings.  It is another thing when you actually link it to your own life and realize that something you’re eating is making you feel awful.

This post about miracles and blessings would not be complete without mentioning my husband and my mother, who both have been great supports to me during the creation of the site.  They are both amazing editors and helped in the editing process of the content of my site.  (If you see typos in my blog posts, it’s because I don’t have them read everything).  They also put in many hours of watching Elijah while I was on phone calls with Dawud or working on the site.  I could not have done it without them!

In close, I am full of gratitude for the chance to be able to touch a much greater amount of people with the menu planner than I ever could have as a personal chef.  When I started this venture, the quote, “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime,” came to mind.

Although I enjoy being able to cook for people who are too busy to do it themselves, I found that my true passion is in helping others do it for themselves.  My hope is that the menu planner and the blog posts I write about cooking techniques, inspirations for cooking, food allergies, health and healing foods will inspire and help families return to their kitchen tables to enjoy food around their own table again.