More About Us

So you get to know us better, photos from our silly adventures and mishaps.

Anna at goat farm
Arhhh, the cute baby goat is eating my sleeve.
Alex transporting cabinet
Alex successfully arrives home after very precariously transporting a cabinet.
Anna with cat
With a barn cat at my friend’s farm in Ohio
Alex in his bunny suit
Alex, in his bunny suit, is about to enter the cleanroom at the nanofabrication facility.
Alex chasing peacock
I turn around to find Alex chasing a peacock in the middle of the parking lot. He never caught the peacock. It was quick.
Relax time Illustration with person sitting on red bean bag reading book, mountains and rivers in the background.
My alter ego – a chic and relaxed version of myself – reclining on a beanbag reading a novel with hot tea in one hand and a beautiful view of the mountains in the background.
Tired of cooking every night? Before and after illustration. Fresh and excited vs.Tired and frazzled. Illustration from garlicdelight.com.
The “reality” ego of my daily life
Alex looking towards the heavens in a very moody shot
The time Alex pretended to start a cult…
Alex & Anna at the ship dock with hats & sunglasses
Alex & I outside enjoying the marine air as we waited for the oyster farm to bring our fresh oysters to shore, in Cayucos, California.
Anna-Chopping-food with head looking down
Hard at work chopping vegetables. Or maybe I was rolling out pasta.

Who am I? 

This is Anna. I write about food and photograph our kitchen creations. I do all the research on stories and daydream about food. I grew up in New Zealand with my mum’s delicious home cooking.

I spent countless childhood hours at the Thai grocery store where she worked as her little assistant. Stocking fish sauce and Mama Tom Yum and INDOMIE Mi Goreng instant noodle packets was my first job at age 8. I worked alongside the fresh aromas of kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass in exchange for a bottle of soda. That’s where I honed my jasmine rice sniffing and soy sauce testing skills.

Anna with pomegranates
Got a box of pomegranates for my birthday. So happy! Thanks, David & Mary, a.k.a mom & dad!

Meet my partner, Alex

Alex is a scientist. He finally got his Ph.D. in Physics in April 2019. He spends his time (when he’s not in the kitchen with me) as a research engineer and inventor, making things that he’s not allowed to tell me about.

He does literally all of the heavy lifting, carrying groceries and wielding heavy pots and pans. He grew up in Southern California cooking a lot with his parents who are Julia Child and Jacques Pépin fans. Customary gifts at Christmas always include a kitchen utensil or three.

Alex with Jersey cows
Alex feeding a Jersey cow a boutique of clover. Watch out for that electric fence!

It all started with a slice of cheesecake

On our first date, Alex and I shared a slice of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. On our third date, he grilled New Zealand lamb chops for me and made his family’s famous garlic lemon juice salad dressing. I knew then that he was a keeper!

We’re a strong partnership with complementary talents. Alex is the mad scientist (what happens when I microwave a hardboiled egg?), fearless and goofy.

I’m the over-optimizer (how can I cook all of this in one pot?), mischievous and adventurous. We’re both optimists with eyes bigger than our stomachs.

Anna and Alex with Bobby
Hanging out with Bobby, the Thoroughbred, at the barn.

Nope, not professional chefs

We’re self-taught, home cooks with an eye towards easy-to-find ingredients and approachable recipes. We’re not experts. But we love to collect information from fellow food lovers and share it with you. We’re tinkerers in the kitchen. And while most of our recipes have plenty of garlic, it is not the only food we eat.

Alex’s favorite kitchen tool is a big chef’s knife. Mine is the garlic press.

We love food from different cultures. My favorite food is noodles. Stir-fried, soupy, saucy, no matter how you make it, I’ve never met a noodle I didn’t like. Alex loves dumplings. Though he will always stubbornly say he doesn’t have a favorite food, rather he loves variety.

While we eat everything (but Alex draws the line at chicken feet), we err on the side of less meat when possible (for the animals’ and environment’s sake) and lower carbs (because of my family history with diabetes). We have a lot of creative alternatives to noodles and not-so-sweet desserts.

But we’re not vegans or vegetarians, even if you find many vegan recipes on Garlic Delight. We believe in balance and a touch of chicken broth now and again.

Alex with brisket
Just another day with a giant piece of brisket, wondering what to do with it.

We’re building a fun community, curious about food, and eager to improve our skills.

Food is a magical substance that brings people together. We want more of that magic in our lives. We’re trying to bring more of it to our neighborhood and community too. That includes our online community here at Garlic Delight.

I learned a lot while living in California about sustainable agriculture and farming practices, thanks to our privileged access to community-supported agriculture (CSAs).

Now we are on a mountain adventure living in Boulder, Colorado and cooking at high-altitude. It brings a lot of new challenges, especially around baking.

Garlic Delight is as much about demystifying food as it is about picking up skills, again not more information. To be clear, we’re no angels either. We don’t always eat organic or pasture-raised. We try to eat homemade meals for dinner and bring leftovers for lunch, but we eat out at restaurants on the weekends.

Anna with kohlrabi
What is this kohlrabi thing?

When we’re not hosting a dinner party…

When we’re not in the kitchen, you can find me at the swimming pool or biking around Boulder’s amazing trails with Alex. Maybe we’re up in Colorado’s beautiful mountains that remind me so much of New Zealand.

You can hang out with us in person at Financial Independence meetups. We co-host the ChooseFI Stanford meetup every month where we talk about money. (I have flown back to the Bay Area to attend the meetups occasionally.) We’re now organizing virtual meetups, which you can attend. I also cohost the NoCo Mustachian meetups in Boulder so you can join us for those in-person events if you like to talk about personal finance.

Tell us about yourself

Now that you’ve seen some pictures of our adventures, tell me about you. Send me an email at anna@garlicdelight.com. I’d love to hear what you’re cooking and food problems you are struggling with.