About Me

Hello and welcome to Meshella.com!

A little bit about me

My name is Michelle, and I live in La Crosse, WI.  I am working as a debt collector (for now), as well as working to further develop this site; Meshella.com is a passion of mine and the only website I’m running.  I’m preparing to start attending culinary school soon; I’ll be earning a Bachelor’s degree at The Art Institute of Los Angeles, CA in Culinary Management, and words cannot express how much I am looking forward to opening that new chapter in my life.  I will be adding a section to this site to chronicle my experiences through culinary school, a journal of sorts.  Watch for that to come this fall!

I’m a die-hard sports fan, and MMA is my favorite.  My favorite fighter is Georges St-Pierre, and next Brandon Vera and Joe Stevenson, along with Cain Velasquez.  I actually went to see UFC 87: Seek and Destroy in Minneapolis in August 2008; it was an amazing experience, the show is so much better live!  I really want to go see another one, and I will next time it’s close to Wisconsin :)   Of course, I’ll have many more opportunities to see live shows once located in Los Angeles, as they hold UFC’s in Las Vegas often.

I also LOVE to watch basketball, football, and baseball.  I originally got into watching basketball by way of March Madness, which is still at the top of my favorite sports events lists.  Now, I also love to watch the NBA, which is amazing these days, with so many talented players.  I’m of course a fan of the Wisconsin Badgers, of course the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Chicago Bulls.  I’m of course a lifelong Green Bay Packer fan; I remember watching Packer games with my family since I can remember, and I still don’t miss a game.  I also love to watch my Milwaukee Brewers; I’ll almost always have the game on in the background while doing work on this site, in fact.

I do not have any children, just my cat Tifa (pictured below).  She just recently turned one year old (at the time this is being written, May 2011); she is named after a Final Fantasy character, in case anyone was wondering.  My boyfriend and I raised her from just 5 or 6 weeks old; she was so tiny, and she had to drink only formula at the beginning, so we had to get up every few hours during the night just as if she were a child; it was a fantastic experience to watch her grow.  She had a brother, Nips (he was pictured in the previous version of this page, & I’ve included a picture of them together below, as well as a picture of him being silly all by himself), but he is no longer with us, having suffered a brain aneurysm this past August (this was a tragedy, as Nips was one of the most special animals I’ve had the pleasure of knowing).  It is my hope to get my first dog soon, once I have a little more space to keep one (our apartment here in Wisconsin is small, and that may be an understatement).

Another passion of mine is reading; I love books, and I have since I was a child.  My favorite author is probably Janet Evanovich; I love her hilarious Stephanie Plum novels.  Other favorites include Jodi Picoult, Dan Brown, Charlaine Harris (I am a TrueBlood/Sookie Stackhouse addict), Stephenie Meyer (of course, the Twilight series is a great story), Mitch Albom, and Joseph Heller (Catch-22 was amazing).  I will also be adding a section to this site for book sharing and reviews, which will be coming soon as well.

To learn more about me, feel free to take a look at my Facebook & Twitter pages (both are updated frequently), or you can email me (there is a contact page at the top of the site); I love feedback, and I love to meet new people with similar interests, so feel free to speak up!  I do offer RSS feeds if you’d like to keep tabs on the site’s progress, and you can also sign up for updates via email (if you don’t have a feed burner, this is a good option, and the updates look the same as with RSS).

How I got into cooking

Two years ago, when I began to make my first attempts at cooking, I was literally unable to correctly chop a head of lettuce, or even cook pasta. I didn’t know the difference between dicing and chopping; I couldn’t tell you what rosemary, thyme or oregano tasted like. Growing up, I’d never shown any real interest in learning to cook, therefore I was never taught much in that area; when I moved out of my parents’ house and was on my own for the first time, I quickly realized that cooking was something that I needed to learn how to do, unless I wanted to live on Ramen noodles and Mac n’ Cheese for the next few years. I managed to make it another year without really learning anything in the kitchen; between working and school I never had the ambition to put in the effort.

Now, fast forward another year, to January of 2008; I met my boyfriend, who loved to cook and, needless to say, knew a lot more about it than I did. I definitely learned a lot from him, and I made a resolution to finally learn. From there it definitely snowballed; I found a few online recipe-sharing websites that I learned a lot from, and tried a lot of new and exciting foods. I finally had that overwhelming desire to learn more, and I couldn’t get enough. Then, I discovered The Food Network, which has been my biggest source of food related inspiration and knowledge, and still is; I’ve become a Food Network junkie, and still get a lot of ideas for recipes from their shows, magazine, and website.  Nowadays, I’m a full-fledged addict, with subscriptions to Cooking Light (my new favorite!), The Food Network magazine, and Taste of Home.  Once hitting culinary school, I’m sure the obsession will most likely intensify, so be advised :) .

How the website got started

The original idea of me putting my ideas into the form of a website came from my boyfriend. I love to share my food-related experiences, and I’m constantly sharing new recipes and ideas with my friends and family, so why not put those ideas and experiences into a website? I’ve always loved to write, also, so this was a perfect fit for me.  Creating this website has opened a lot of figurative doors for me, too, besides allowing me an outlet to share my ideas.  I’ve learned so much about food and cooking through my experience in starting this website, including how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and how to stay on budget while still enjoying tasty food.  Also, I’ve learned a lot of facts about food; you could say my food-IQ has improved tenfold since starting Meshella.com, and it is ever-growing.

This blog is dominantly a food blog, but I have also included some tips and tricks dealing with food that I’ve come across, along with interesting products that I’ve tried and used (and liked, of course). Any suggestions are welcome, as I’m sure there are a variety of other tips, tricks, products, and recipes out there that are worth sharing with others that I haven’t discovered yet!  Again, please feel free to contact me with any feedback, or just to make a connection, especially if we have some similar interests! Happy cooking :)