My name is Anne Bedard – you’ve found At Least I Can Cook, my way of sharing my love of cooking and eating good, healthy (most of the time), delicious, real food while also putting on the table my journey through situational depression in 2008 to full recovery. Cooking for me has always been therapeutic with the added bonus that most of what I’ve cooked has tasted delicious and been greatly appreciated by family and friends. In the darkest days of my depression, I would drag myself home from work, drag myself into the kitchen and pour myself into preparing dinner for my family. They would gather eagerly around the table, smiles on their shining faces, forks clutched in their hungry hands they would dig into the supper offering and, sometime later, push back with full tummies and appreciative sighs. “That was the best meal in Bedford tonight”, my unfailingly loving and loyal husband would pronounce and, I, having spent the day at work wondering if my contributions meant anything to anyone, would mutter “Well, at least I can cook…”. Thus, this blog.
Cooking is a very personal and fulfilling adventure for me – I love to eat good food, am the wife of a kilt-wearing, musically brilliant dead fish salesman who also loves good food, the blessed mother of two sets of twins, all four of them foodies with appreciative appetites, and am a twenty year Human Resources executive who discovered firsthand the stigma attached to mental illness. I’m personally committed to helping others enjoy good food, work towards a healthy balanced life and raising awareness of the critical need for workplaces to become healthier while breaking down the stigma of mental illness.
My cooking skills are self-taught, learned at the elbows of my mother and grandmother, both wonderful cooks who taught me how to make and enjoy good, real food. My mother did stray to the land of casseroles made with various canned soup bases for a while, but the majority of her cooking was real and really good! MMMMmmmm – her coconut cream pie was pure bliss, luscious texture, airy toasty meringue and flaky crust. I can be a bit flaky at times, my pastry not so much, but I’m working on it and have learned that as in much of life, developing cooking and baking skills can be a work in progress. I did win an original recipe contest (Vancouver Sun, 1980), took some cooking classes along the way and have an extensive cookbook and food magazine collection, some of these approaching vintage!
A humble student of Pilates, I visit the gym regularly – and sometimes I even work out! Long, long ago and not so far away I was born and grew up in Fredericton, NB, between two farms, close to a golf course and spent most of my time outdoors always moving. I miss my university field hockey days and love reading, gardening and the ocean – friends, new and old are my anchors and support team in good and bad times. My belief is that many risks are worth taking, that the heart knows what the head should be doing and believing in yourself is the most important and first step to finding what you’re looking for in life.
I hope you enjoy my offerings in all areas, find them interesting, entertaining and helpful as I work to develop my blog and I hope you will let me know what you think. know that whether you like what I’ve written or not, I’d like your feedback, because after all, at least I can cook…