Welcome! My name is Dana and I am the recipe creator, photographer, food stylist, spoon licker, and dishwasher at The Retro Foodie. I am here to elevate classic recipes and nostalgic flavors and modernize them to be unapologetically gourmet with a pinch of health. My goal is to take your favorite dishes and flavors of the past and transform them into something you would be proud to serve again. Passé flavors and foods were popular for a reason, so let’s recreate them to share cleaner and healthier food together. I am a foodie and lover of all decades and the culinary pleasures from each. Whether its ambrosia salad, meatloaf or Pop-Tarts, they all deserve a second chance. Yes, you heard me, ambrosia salad deserves another shot at love.
We all have busy lives and my intention is to provide easy and approachable recipes that are realistic to create at home. I am a mom of one and between all the diapers and laundry, I do not have time to make complicated recipes with obscure ingredients. In fact, all my recipes are created during my daughter’s naps, so realistic food is not a choice, but a necessity.
What is retro to me?
Classic dishes or flavors that were popular in the past, but deserve to be enjoyed today. Some of the recipes are ubiquitous today, but have been modernized to be something new. The recipes provided, I try to transform to include more color, vegetables, and cleaner ingredients. Although you will sometimes see recipes that are diet specific (vegan, plant based, gluten free, etc.), I am a lover of all food and do not subscribe to any diet.
Who am I?
My name is Dana and I created this blog during the COVID-19 quarantine. For the past 14 years, I have been developing and commercializing recipes for restaurant chains and packaged foods at grocery stores. I am also a corporate nutritionist and have a passion for healthy food. With a BS in Food Science and Nutrition, I am one of the few that actually can tell my parents that I used my degree! Then the pandemic happened and I found myself with a lot of extra free time. I decided to turn lemons into lemonade and take my passion for cooking and photography and share it with the world.
I am a “flexitarian”: sometimes vegan, sometimes plant based, sometimes gluten free, and sometimes low carb. “Sometimes” is my health philosophy and strive to eat mostly healthy, but life is too short without donuts, pizza, and cheese, right? I believe that food should be enjoyed and moderation is the key to mental and physical health. Food for me not only nourishes the mind, body, and soul, but is a vessel for stories to share and brings people together. Enough philosophy, now let’s go eat!