Warren Johnston

I am a baby boomer who grew up in a time when the trend in food was convenience and speed. It wasn't the fast-food era, but a post-World War II time when new packaging and technology slipped into our mother's kitchen. She was trying something new and easy, but the metallic flavor of a TV dinner Salisbury steak, the watery instant mash potatoes and Swanson's soggy fried chicken and vapid succotash, are seared in my memory. The chicken was particularly offensive to someone raised in the South and used to eating yard-raised and freshly killed poultry that was crisply fried to juicy doneness.

At an early age, I realized that food could be better than what came in a box, and that's when I started helping my mother in the kitchen and learning to cook slowly and properly. The interest continued through high school in Atlanta and at the University of Georgia. After I graduated with a history degree, I joined the Coast Guard Reserve and cooked there. Even when I was misspending my 20s in the real estate business in Atlanta, I truly loved throwing dinner parties. So much so that Louis Osteen, who's still a successful chef, and I felt compelled to open a fine-dining, neighborhood restaurant. He'd had a little kitchen training, and I knew how to eat. We made a great team. The experience was invaluable, albeit not profitable.

After 30 years as a newspaper writer and editor, I'm still cooking and eating well, but not dreaming of opening my own place. Now, I am even allowed to write about food and wine.

Fortunately, my wife and I live in Vermont, one of the best places in the country for great, fresh, organically grown food. Much of it is as close as a neighbor's farm or the backyard garden.

Living in this part of the world also suits our place in life. Healthy living and eating and trying to clean up the mess of a planet are important to us, and a way to do our part is to buy locally grown food and sustainable seafood. However, even here that is not always convenient or fast. It takes a new way of shopping and thinking. It takes planning, and it costs more.

I look forward to being part of the project. I believe it will help me have a more sustainable lifestyle, and the blog will allow me to share the experience with others.