I'm on a mission to love people through my food and that they love me back by enjoying it. It's an orchestrated love story swirling with happiness and delight.

It all started from a young age. My father was a military man and my mother a stay at home caterer. I used to watch her from the table, all night decorating wedding and birthday cakes for her clients. And when my father was away at work, a multitude of people would pour into our house. We’d have food on the table from end to end. It was like water to wine as my mother so gracefully flowed in and out of the kitchen to greet then prepare, greet and prepare. I often gazed at her in loving amazement. I noticed how satisfied and full of happiness our house became, as people came to and fro to feast and fellowship. I longed for that feeling, to make everyone as happy with my own food. When I got older, my sister and I would hold late night sessions. A lot of times we couldn’t sleep, so we would stay up and bake cakes while we did our homework last minute. We’d hold our secret meetings downstairs in the kitchen and feast to our little heart’s content.

My satisfaction doesn't only come from the consumption of such delicately prepared delectables, however, but from sharing the experience of food. See, food is much more than eating to me. It's friends and family gatherings, laying in the grass, picking smooches from your sweetie under a tree.

For me, cooking is truly something you put your entire heart and soul into. Creating and cooking in the kitchen is love in action, manifested from the intangible of the heart into tangible digestible delightfulness; a glorious agape in the form of food!

It brings a remarkably joyful sense of duty yet with an offset anxiousness, an intense eagerness almost out of control. In the kitchen I’m the same way but I get down to business (enter the serious face). It’s amazing to see the finished work of your hands and then bask in the overwhelming sense of pleasure, like a big sigh of love struck satisfaction, except you just never get enough. Duty calls and love wells up. I pour myself into each step. My cup runneth over!

I want people to discover food, to experience that sense of fulfillment, to peak their interest in the literal “Joy of Cooking”.

See, funny thing is, I don't care about becoming a celebrity chef. I just want to cook.

My name is Elle, and I am the Delightful Chef.