About VALESKA
German expat living and loving life in Santa Barbara for over 16 years. Mother, wife, and advocate of REAL food.
I grew up in Berlin, Germany in the 80s and 90s. I was fortunate to spend vacations and summers in the Italian and Germanic countryside, where I played in my grandparents’ garden. It was there that I began to understand the elementary connection between where our food comes from and how it makes us feel. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were spent in the company of family, sitting around the table for at least an hour with fresh, local and seasonal foods.
Today, at 80 years-old, my grandmother is still picking cherries from our cherry tree, with a fully planted garden.
I am a true believer that food can heal us.
When I moved to Santa Barbara in 2001 I saw how most people eat and the relationship they had with food, and I realized that I could help them feel better. I saw that bringing the European style of eating can be helpful here in America. Through tis passion a career in cooking was born.
I began to cook and nurture many families through food and decided to further my education and enrolled in culinary school to learn the real tools behind it and utilize these tools to effectively help more people.
Right after graduating I got an offer to work for Cher as a personal chef where I worked for 5 years, until I had my daughter.
When I had my daughter Charlie, I realized when coming home from work, caring and cooking for other people, that sometimes you don’t have time to cook for your own family. I needed some real quick recipes. Recipes that are still whole and nourishing us, but require minimum effort. The image portrayed online on social media and many wellness blogs, that everyone has it all together at all times, working full time and still having time to prepare homemade meals from scratch daily, while caring for a child is bunk. It simply isn’t realistic.
People approached me constantly and ask, “How do you do it all? What are good recipes when I’ve had a long day?” I want to show that it’s not always easy and one needs to find a good balance and have some good, healthy, and go-to’s that require minimum effort. In my desire to help and reach more than just my friends and acquaintances, the idea for the real sheet was born.