Today we’d like to introduce you to Edith Li.
Hi Edith, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
As a busy professional, finding time to cook is HARD. Finding a way to eat healthy on top of that is even harder. I looked online for tips, tricks, and recipes for healthy, quick meals that also taste good, but couldn’t find what I was looking for. Since I couldn’t find anything online, I went back to what I know from growing up.
My mom worked a full-time job, 5 days a week, and still came home and cooked every night. I grew up watching her cook while I did my homework at the dinner table. My mom taught me how to time dishes so they’d all come out at the same time, how to measure and prep ingredients, and how to prioritize and manage the different moving parts involved in making a meal. Food was such a centerpiece of my childhood that I even learned fractions by learning how to bake!
So in between projects at work, I started writing down what I was doing as I cooked my meals for the week. I called my mom and asked for advice when I forgot something. And when I got the hankering for something different, I went out on my own and riffed on different meals I’d tried while eating out, putting my own spin on them.
Some of my coworkers would regularly come over to my desk to find out what I was eating that day. They’d comment on how long it took to cook a meal, the mess, and the headache. I’d try to convince them otherwise and they’d ask me to cook for them, that it was just too much on top of everything else they had going on in their lives. I laughed and told them it’d take me maybe 3-4 hours in a weekend to make lunch, and dinner for two for a week and they were amazed Hahaha, I’d swap cooking and prep tips for life advice!
I knew I hadn’t found the kind of recipes and cooking advice I wanted and my friends and coworkers would ask me questions weekly. With the encouragement of my husband, Busy People Eat was born as a way to share the kind of recipes and tips I wished I could find when I started cooking for myself full-time. The kind of things that work well for busy professionals, busy parents, and everyone in-between. Non-diet conscious, healthy-ish (cuz I do love a good slice of chocolate cake!) food that tastes good, cooks up with minimal effort, packs well, and reheats/plates even better.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Hahaha, it definitely has not been a smooth road. I chose Instagram because it seemed like it would take less time, just a photo and some text with a predefined text limit, a microblog. But then it dawned on me that I had to actually take pictures of my food! I had no idea where to start, so I went where most people go with their questions these days, Google. And it’s still a process, something I’m definitely still learning about, and a skill I’m still working on.
I also have a full-time job, one that definitely has its moments on the “plus” side of a “40-hour-plus a week” job. There are weeks when I don’t cook. There are weeks where we survive on overnight oats breakfasts, snack box lunches, and takeout dinners. And I talk about those, too. Busy People Eat isn’t about perfection; if it was, there’s no way I could keep up with it! I’m far from perfect and I don’t want to make it seem like I am. Life’s not about being perfect, it’s about doing the best you can with what you have at the moment.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I spend my days in a world of numbers, spreadsheets, rules, and hard deadlines. Sometimes those days turn into evenings as well, most times those kinds of days mean I’m eating whenever I can or whenever I’m hungry. It’s a world where there’s only so much space for interpretation, so food and cooking are definitely my creative outlets!
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
During the Covid-19 Crisis, I learned that time is that one thing you never get back. Either you make an active decision on what to do with that time or the minutia of your days will decide for you (whether you like it or not!).
These days, I’m more deliberate about what I spend my time doing. Writing down my intentions for that day’s time helps me to keep focused and not let the time just drift away from me, which is SUPER easy to let happen.
If there’s something I want to do, I write it down. I’ve learned to think of my personal time much like I think of my time at work. I have a personal to-do list and a personal want-to-do list similar to my to-do lists at work. I put time on my schedule to do the things I WANT to do just as I would schedule the things I HAVE to do, making those personal things as important as the work meetings and professional deadlines I’m used to working so hard for.
As hard as the Covid-19 Crisis has been, learning to see my personal time and needs/wants with the same importance as my professional life has been a blessing.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/busypeopleeat
Image Credits
Edith Li
