Sharing my love of food
My name is RaDonna Ridner Thurman. I am married to the handsome, sporty, and nerdy Mr. Justin Thurman. We’ve been married for 17 years and we have an adorable and also handsome son, Atticus. He is 11 years old.
I grew up in Tennessee on a small farm. I can remember my sweet Mama letting me help her in the kitchen as young as 4 or 5 years old. She has always encouraged me and would eat anything I cooked. She still will to this day! When I was about 8 years old, Mom went back to work and I started trying to have supper ready when she got home. For the first year or two it was almost always stewed potatoes, green beans and cornbread, my specialty. But, as I grew more confident, I began to pour over her cookbooks and experimenting with anything I could find. I cooked anything that I could find as long as we had the ingredients on hand, because we lived way out in the country and a trip to town for 1 or 2 ingredients wasn’t an option. A favorite of mine was the Old Pioneer Cookbook, lots of casserole recipes in that one. I even attempted “doughnuts” from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. I had some successes and quite a few failures,but it really helped foster my love of cooking. As a young adult, I loved cooking for roommates in college. As a newlywed, I grew even more adventurous trying out lots of “fancy recipes” that have become family favorites.
In 2005, our sweet Atticus was born. When he was just a couple of weeks old, we discovered that he had food allergies. With some eliminating from my diet, we were able to pinpoint that it was dairy, eggs, strawberries and peanuts. Allergy tests at 1 year old confirmed this. Over the years he actually outgrew his allergies to peanuts and strawberries. However, his allergies to dairy and egg have grown much worse. He will actually go into anaphylactic shock if he consumes even a few bites of something containing either ingredient. In addition, about 5 years ago, my husband developed an adult onset food allergy to dairy. So, needless to say, my cooking had to get very creative. But, I am so happy to report that I’ve been able to adapt and create recipes similar to or even identical to old favorites.
Years ago I wrote a food blog for a newspaper in AL (pre-allergies). I thoroughly enjoyed that and so very recently, my sweet husband created this new blog for me to share my passion with other “ingredient challenged” friends ( i.e. those with food allergies!) So, I hope you’ll join me on my adventures as I cook old recipes, try new ones, and attempt to do most of them in an allergy friendly way.
