Veronica Culver

IN THE KITCHEN WITH VERONICA CULVER

June 2020 US Wellness Meats Featured Chef Q&A

Tell us about yourself:

I’m a Keto chef and baker as well as a certified group fitness trainer. My food philosophy is geared towards fueling your body with high performance, anti-inflammatory foods that won’t weigh you down.

How did you get involved in cooking?

I started preparing dinners for my family when I was very small – around 6 years old. We had a family of five, both my parents worked outside the home and everyone had to pitch in on all the chores around the house. One of mine was making dinner each night – and we ate at home every night, seven days a week! Suffice to say, I got a lot of experience starting from a very young age.

Describe your cooking style:

“Eclectic and Easy” – I like to blend different cuisines, cooking styles, and ingredients that you might not initially think go together but somehow just work. I guess you could say I take a bit of a hippie approach to cooking. When I’m developing a new recipe, I relax and just let it flow. I keep an open mind and don’t feel constrained by what’s “supposed” to be. There is no right or wrong in my opinion. I’m guided by what I taste and see, and I often begin with just what I have on hand. I guess you could call it a reverse process in a way (instead of deciding what to make and getting the ingredients, I might start with the ingredients and let that guide me towards a dish).

I think my early years learning how to cook and feed a family on a tight budget helped me to become more creative – as a matter of function, since we only had so many things and I would have to make do with what we had.

How did you learn about grass-fed meats?

As a child, my family hunted, fished and kept a huge garden because back then it was less expensive to do those things. We ate naturally and non-gmo (at least until convenience and cheap prepackaged foods came along). I guess I never forgot that foundation, so as an adult when I realized what poor quality our general food supply had become, I actively sought out better – natural – options. Grass-fed meats, wild-caught fish, organic vegetables, etc. were no-brainers.