Fireside Chat with McKenzie Hall Jones
McKenzie Hall Jones recently joined Wild Hive (read the full release here), so we thought it would be a good idea to sit down for a little chat so you can learn a little more about what she’s all about.
Where do you get your inspiration from when developing a recipe for a client?
I love to “read” cookbooks and magazines; Instagram and Pinterest are brimming with beautiful inspiration; and often my recipes are inspired from foods and flavors that I’m simply craving. A lot of my favorite recipes are often variations on dishes I already love!
What would be your dream foodie adventure?
I’d absolutely love to go on a road trip so I could taste my way through Italy. The thought of a weekly menu consisting of pasta, pizza, gelato, and wine sounds pretty blissful. Greece is also on my bucket list since I love all the flavors of Mediterranean cuisine.
What is your nutrition mission statement?
To me, eating well certainly does not equate to perfection. Some days, you might eat too much and some days you might eat too little and some days you might have a piece of chocolate cake with a heaping scoop of ice cream just because the occasion calls for it!
As a fairly recent newly-wed (to a fire fighter no less!), how have your eating habits changed as a couple?
It’s definitely made me better at meal prep and planning at the beginning of the week! Now that I’m cooking for two, meal planning and shopping in advance has been so helpful in preventing either of us from getting overly hungry at night. I’m also challenging myself a bit more to get outside of my comfort zone in the kitchen and try recipes I might not otherwise think to make. And while I’ve always been a big advocate of leftovers, my leftover appreciation has gone to a whole new level. I usually make big portions for dinner, which helps a lot! Cook once, eat twice!
What food/nutrition/wellness trends are you seeing that you’re excited about?
For starters, I truly love the growing interest of food and nutrition in general. When I meet someone for the first time and share with them what I do, it often seems to open the gateway of a game to 20 questions. I hear questions about what foods to eat, how I eat, what the latest nutrition science is, etc. I love that people feel comfortable enough to ask these kinds of questions; conversations like this only seem to emphasize that food is our common ground, it helps bring people together, and it’s something that I love. From a more specific standpoint, I love seeing the emphasize on plant-based diets and the increased interest in connecting to where our food comes from (I love farmers!). I also get a little bit overly excited about research surrounding the gut-brain connection.
As a Canadian-native living in Los Angeles, what do you miss most about Alberta?
Of course I miss the people, but I also miss that big blue Alberta sky, the really, really late summer nights, and having a white Christmas. I also love to ice skate and truly miss all the enthusiasm of hockey lovers around me, too!
A few other fun facts about McKenzie:
- I love to travel. My favorite place I’ve been to is Austria; when I graduated from college, I backpacked with three girlfriends for 5 weeks in Central America and ate gallo pinto almost every day (and never got sick of it); and on my honeymoon, my husband and I explored Peru and went to Machu Picchu
- I can still (kind of) tap dance!
- I could still probably recite the entire movie “Grease” from start to finish 🙂