About

The writer and cook
Ranjani is a PhD student at graduate from MIT who spends most of her free time cooking or thinking about food. She loves whole grains and vegetables (seriously), and thinks a trip to the farmers' market is the greatest.

The photographer
Ranjani's husband Andrew takes all of the photographs displayed on this site. Although he is more than capable of producing delicious dishes, Ranjani doesn't often let him take charge in the kitchen.

The blog
Four Seasons of Food was born when Ranjani decided to use more locally grown and/or produced ingredients in her cooking (see here to find out why). She and Andrew live in Massachusetts, so this is easy to do in the summer, but winter might get to be a bit of challenge... This blog is an effort to document the results and share Ranjani's experiences with and advice about local, seasonal cooking in New England. For more about Ranjani's philosophy on food, see here.

What you'll see here: for the most part, healthy and tasty dishes featuring whole grains, lots of fresh produce, and a little bit of meat (meat from the local farms gets expensive). On occasion, you'll see something that is the opposite of healthy, but is just plain delicious - some recipes are just impossible to resist!

*Update (April 2012)*
My philosophy on food continues to shift all the time as I learn more about nutrition and food movements. After blogging for almost 2 years, my priorities have shifted to focus more on healthy food and less on local food. To me, the biggest component of a healthy diet is lots of vegetables, with lots of variety. I still buy produce almost exclusively from the farmers' market during the summer and fall months because I think fresher vegetables taste better and have the added benefit of lasting longer before spoiling. However, I am completely ok with relying on non-local supermarket produce during the winter and spring months. If there's a local option available, I am likely to choose it (this applies to some roots and some greens in the winter), but I think variety is hugely important to a healthy diet, so I buy plenty of other vegetables from the supermarket as well. You will see this reflected in the recipes that I post on the blog. I still consider most of my recipes to be seasonal in nature, but I have to be realistic about the fact that nothing grows in Massachusetts during the winter. As for meat, I still buy it exclusively from local farms, but this is because I have confidence in the fact that the animals are raised humanely (so I guess you could say that humane is the first priority there, not local). I don't believe that meat is essential to a healthy diet, so I'm ok with being picky about sourcing and eating limited amounts of it as a result. Okay, that's all I have to say - I just want to be open and honest about how the theme of my blog is changing over time so that new readers know what to expect. Thanks for reading!