who: Mary Elizabeth Kay

what: software developer, writer, plant lady, yogi, wife, mom, avid reader and traveler, compulsive creative, and lover of all things nerd.

where: Cleveland, Ohio

why: I started this site as a way to gain some web development experience, as I rarely use these languages at my day job. I was also desperately in need of a consistent creative outlet, I just didn't know it at the time. Life is fascinating that way; you are often led to what you need, without even realizing that you were lacking - some may call this intelligent design, happenstance, serendipity, etc.

One of my favorite mantras for myself is - "I will make everything around me beautiful." This space has become a place for me to share the simplest expression of that through creating/baking/etc. and sometimes glimpses of the more difficult/deeper implementation of this notion through mindset. Often, the most beautiful things are hard to see and cost you something to truly appreciate. So it is in some ways a journal of personal growth, hence the bildungsroman theme, which my fellow English majors may know as the "coming-of-age" or character development genre of novels (in the past mostly for men). What can I say, I am a nerd at heart and I like a good theme.

As life has gotten very full (working mama) and being of the artsy type, I have to create to stay sane and my favorite ways are usually through baking/cooking and gardening. Baking has always been a love/hate relationship for me, as I wanted more freedom to create recipes on my own, but you can't just wing it like cooking because... well... science. Determined, I started working my way through some of the standard pastry school textbooks and developing and testing my own recipes, so expect to find unique creations. I am also very interested modernist cuisine and applying more science to cooking, but finding ways to normalize it for the average cook (like me). If I find inspiration from someone else, it is noted. The appendix also includes some of the foundational books and tools I use.

fantasy dinner guests: David Foster Wallace, Mother Teresa, Jesus, Bill Hicks, Hunter S. Thompson, Dolly Parton, Stephen Tyler, the Dalai Lama, Amy Winehouse.
and in the kitchen: Heston Blumenthal, Auguste Escoffier, Julia Child, Thomas Keller and Michel Roux Snr.


contact: admin@marysmaking.com