— Karin Aberg

So I can tell you this, that, excuse me, I happen to be really lucky. I I feel blessed that most of the time I'm one of those people who's at the right place at the right time. And I'll share with you a quick story that, uh, 16 years ago this week, I was at the first ever engine two immersion, which is now called Plant Strong with Rip Essel and his entire family. And the movie Forks Over Knives was in its director's cut. And every night at the immersion you could go square dancing or you could go African dancing or you could watch this movie. And what ended up for me is that I was so intrigued by this movie that I never learned how to do African dance and I didn't go to the talent show, but every night I watched Forks Over Knives. And when I got back to Philadelphia after watching the movie for a week, I called the producer on the phone and I said, hello, this is my name. Uh, this is where I work. I saw the movie, I loved it so much, how can I share it with my community? And to make a very long story short, just by being at the right place at the right time, I wrote an entire curriculum for an event that would happen in my city that would feature forks over knives in the director's Cut where every five minutes there's a little banner that came across the screen in the movie theater that said Director's cut, director's cut. But 450 people came to the event. The curriculum that I created was shared in 27 other cities. And from that grew, uh, my becoming, uh, going to Rouxbe and then studying culinary writing at the University of the Arts. And I've been able to write for several magazines even. And I don't even think, uh, my, uh, producer today knows that I was featured in Canadian Vegan Magazine. And, um, I think that you have to set your eyes on what it is that you want to do. You might have to be, uh, a little forward and you just have to believe in yourself and everything that you love, love to do. So if food writing is what you like to do, I would do that. So today, because the world has changed so much in the social media sense, find a couple of, um, social media sites that you like and send them a DM and say, Hey, this is my name. This is what I love to do. Uh, my specialties include and I would love to write about and name a topic. Uh, that's the way that things happen. Uh, there's a wonderful expression that says talk does not cook rice. So we have to just believe in ourselves in what we want to do. It did, I did find it helpful taking a food writing course, uh, just in terms of, uh, learning correct, um, verbal responses to things and understanding that entire genre, excuse me, of, of writing because it's different than writing factual or whatever. And if you do have any questions, Karen, feel free to email me. I believe you have my email address and I would be happy to send you some other suggestions. So gotta follow the prize as they say. I hope you're doing well. Your food still remains as so beautiful and nutrient dense and uh, that is one of the many great things that you bring to the table.