#MediaMonday – Marci Symington
Each Monday, we are posting a blog to help our readers get to know the media just a little bit better.
Today’s #MediaMonday comes to us from Marci Symington, founder and head writer at texAZtaste.com, and it is one so many of us who have lost someone they love – and found someone to love – can relate to. I certainly do.
So, Marci, time to share.
What do you want to tell the blogosphere about yourself today?
Losing my mother was a pivotal moment in my life: there is a distinct “before” and “after.” I was in a dark place for many months after she passed, mumbling like a mad woman as I walked the dogs around the neighborhood with tears streaming down my face. My mother had been a restaurant owner in Texas, and was an amazing home cook, so when I enrolled in the Arizona Culinary Institute, I felt I was where I belonged. I cut my teeth working at Franco’s Italian Caffe, catering at local events and teaching cooking classes with a friend from culinary school.
But let me back up a bit…I am a Texas girl. Like many who move here for school, I hadn’t planned on staying. Arizona was to be a stopover on the way to working for a multinational corporation in South America. I had moved to Glendale to get an international MBA, but was shortly distracted by a cute Arizona boy who convinced me to linger a while. Downtown Phoenix took the place of some bustling South American capital, and I worked as a CPA while my husband started a greenhouse tomato operation in Northern Mexico. After some years, swearing off the cubicle life for good, I handed in my calculator for an apron and toque. The recession hit, and I was faced yet again with the prospect of having to reinvent myself. But fate works in mysterious ways, and I found myself back in Texas; however, now I was caring for my mother who had been diagnosed with terminal leukemia.
Shortly after the one-year anniversary of her death, my husband took me on a weekend getaway to Sedona. After hiking, yoga and an incredible dinner at Elote, I woke up in the middle of the night, furiously writing a letter to my mother about the things I had done that day, and texAZtaste was born. It is a compilation of my travels and my travails, my joys and my disappointments. Food plays an important part in who I am: it connects me to my childhood and to the memories of my mother. Writing about the joy that surrounds a memorable meal and the people behind the creation of these experiences has helped me work through the sadness and grief. As a result, I am on a daily discovery of the world around me, of what makes Phoenix and the great state of Arizona so great. It inspires me…what inspires you?
You can find me on www.texAZtaste.com, and on Facebook and Instagram under that same handle. And if you have a great story or foodie idea to send my way, reach me anytime at marcisymington@yahoo.com.
