I’m delighted to have you here.

So, what is Healthy Habits with JenWalsh all about, one might ask?

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Well, in a nutshell, it’s about my newly discovered passion for learning to cook everything from scratch.

My wonderful mother has always been such a foodie, in the most old-fashioned, brilliant way. Growing up, I had the pleasure of watching her make passata from scratch with her sisters, prepare homemade pastry that transformed into the most mouth-watering pies my heart will forever treasure, and clip her pasta machine onto the end of her industrial-sized benchtop, to make homemade ravioli.

Then there were her winter-warming, slow-cooked stews and soups… and don’t even get me started on her apple pie.

The woman cooked everything, from  Asian meals, Middle Eastern dishes, and Italian classics,  if someone stopped to share a recipe, best believe she would cook it. She cooked with so much love, passion, and like every old-fashioned European mum, absolutely zero measuring cups. Somehow, despite the “little bit of this and little bit of that” approach, her cooking was masterful.

She became such a talented cook that she turned it into a profession: Laura’s Catering Service. People booked her from all over Victoria, and she quickly became known for her generosity,  not only in flavour, but in the quality and abundance of her food.

She became so busy that growing up, the only real time I got to spend with her was in the kitchen. Of course, that meant peeling potatoes, chopping carrots, or helping in whatever way I could.

The funny thing is, because my mother cooked by instinct, "a little bit of this, a little bit of that", she wasn’t exactly able to teach me in a structured way.

When I eventually married and began cooking for my own family, I quickly discovered just how terrible my cooking skills really were. Let’s just say, I was serving meals that only a man deeply in love would willingly eat.

I waited a long time to become a mother, and when that time finally came, I devoted every waking moment to my babies. Naturally, my kitchen skills remained… well, lacking.

It wasn’t until my children became a little less dependent that I felt comfortable stepping back into the kitchen and truly spending time there.

What I’ve discovered is that all those years of quietly watching my mother were enough to ignite some foundational cooking skills,  enough to give me a sense of confidence and “know-how” to finally begin learning how to cook from scratch.

And that’s exactly what this space is about.

Join me on my documented journey as I learn, laugh, experiment, make mistakes, and hopefully inspire you to develop your own cooking skills right alongside me.

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Warm regards,
Jennifer Walsh xoxo