About Us

Our journey to cookbooks, cooking videos and this website full of recipes is both lifelong and quite short. We come from families who put a lot of importance in food. For Ryan it was the ritual of sitting down as a family and connecting over home cooked meals. For Josie it was her mom’s interest in nutrition and her Nana’s love of entertaining. 

We met and fell in love at Strathcona Park Lodge, an outdoor education centre on Vancouver Island founded by Josie’s mom and now run by her brother. Food has always been an important part of the Lodge experience: their buffet meals are famously delicious and nutritious and full of local ingredients. Exactly what’s needed after a day spent climbing, hiking, paddling and playing in Mother Nature’s playground.

When we left the Lodge to start our own life together, we took their food philosophy with us and then made it our own. Josie is a celiac and can’t eat anything with gluten. Ryan’s family has a history of diabetes, so he has always avoided sugar. And our daughter Paige is both lactose intolerant and gluten sensitive. With all that going on, eating always had the potential to be a headache, gut-ache and bland. Instead we made it fun and flavourful. 

We now live on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. It’s one of the most productive agriculture regions in the country. It’s also an adventure sports hub, home to world class surfing, mountain biking, ocean and river paddling and fishing, skiing of all sorts, hiking, climbing and more. 

Our lifestyle embraces both elements and, by extension, so does our cooking. We focus on fresh, whole foods that are full of nutrition and energy. Diverse ingredients, local produce and cooking from scratch powers us through our busy days. 

Making food became an even more important part of our lives during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Instead of traveling and going out to get our exotic fix, we found ourselves stifled and cooped up at home. Meal prep became a family activity. At the same time, Josie started filming dinner making as a way to connect virtually with her friends and family.  Even as the pandemic restrictions slowly, slowly eased we continued to enjoy sharing our meals beyond our home. 

Filming forced us to think more deeply about what we were doing. We had to be more present to the process and more thoughtful about the substance of the ingredients, the method and the outcome. The more energy we put in, the more we wanted to give and the more joy we received from our food. This website is an extension of all that and more.