Hi! I’m Karlie, and I’m a chef, blogger, and small business owner living and working in the Austin area. Here, you’ll find the recipes that are essential to the repertoire I’ve garnered over the last decade of cooking and eating plant-based food.
These dishes are cozy and rustic with an unexpected twist that elevates them to something truly special. They’re inspired by my travels in Tuscany combined with the produce that’s brimming at farm stands throughout the season here in Central Texas.
I hope these dishes will get you excited for dinner time when you can get creative in the kitchen. Cooking and sharing food with people I love is my greatest joy, and I hope to spark that same fire within you — and if that already exists, consider this a fan to the flame.
My background: From a marketing degree to culinary school
I studied advertising (with a focus on copywriting) at The University of Texas at Austin. During my studies I was living downtown and working at restaurants to support myself financially. In my precious free time, I cooked my way through the world of plants, earning certifications from online culinary schools including Rouxbe’s Plant-Based Professional Course and Food Future Institute.
Both of these online culinary schools made a huge impact on the cook I am today. Rouxbe, specifically, is an excellent course for cooks to gain a foundational knowledge of knife skills, cooking methods, and more.
Rather than simply teaching you a variety of recipes (a cookbook can do that!), Rouxbe teaches you the why behind everything you do in the kitchen by providing video walkthroughs and personalized feedback from real chefs. They give you a starting point that you can then riff off of to create an endless repertoire of recipes in your arsenal.
I can’t speak highly enough about how Rouxbe has built my confidence in the kitchen. Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned chef, everyone can improve from this amazing experience.
Explore Rouxbe’s Plant-Based Professional Certification Course
Note that the above is an affiliate link. I gain a small commission from sales made through clicking it.
Taking the leap back into full-time fooding + the birth of Loam
During the summer of 2022, I realized my digital marketing career wasn’t working for me anymore. I had worked my way up to management at an agency, and while I seemed successful on the outside, my physical and mental health were suffering big time.
Eventually, I made the hard decision to step away from my career to pursue my passion for sharing plant-based food. I went back to working in restaurants doing everything from prep to pastry to helping with menu development and social media content creation.
I now co-own and operate Loam, a plant-based supper club and catering company in Austin. We host monthly dinner popups and cater small weddings, corporate lunches, parties, and more.
My day-to-day
When I’m not working, I’m testing new recipes, buying obscene amounts of cookbooks, and watching food documentaries and shows. When the weather’s nice, you’ll find me tending to my vegetable garden, fawning over eggplants, peppers, beans, and cucumbers.
My husband Nathan washes more dishes than any human ever should. Our cat Percy curiously watches it all from his perch on a barstool. If he’s a good boy (which he always is), he’ll get a teeny nibble of his favorite food ever — bread!
What can I say? Like mother, like son.
