7 years ago
KELSEY FOSTER

Born and raised in Northern California, I moved to Blacksburg four years ago when my husband entered a doctorate program in chemistry at Virginia Tech. I had never traveled to Virginia, but found an easy connection with the area through my food and lifestyle blog, aslolife.com.
My blog was created as a way to chronicle my food adventures during my last year of living in one of California’s richest agricultural areas — San Luis Obispo, or SLO, where I had also attended college at Cal Poly. The California central coast has an extensive wine country, a host of local breweries and farmer’s markets on every day of the week, so it was really the ideal location to learn to appreciate good food and how to prepare and cook it. When I moved to the New River Valley, I was thrilled to find a similar local food culture to explore and to inspire my own recipe creation and writing.
I love creating simple recipes that highlight the featured ingredients and that cooks of all levels can enjoy making, such as the slow cooker apple butter recipe featured in this issue. Since moving to Blacksburg, I have also expanded my blog to include more lifestyle features, such as fashion, another one of my other passions.
When I’m not in the kitchen or writing, I can be found hanging out with my two cats, Padfoot and Pippin, exploring new areas and restaurants with my husband, singing with the Blacksburg Master Chorale, and working at my day job as a full time graduate student earning my master’s degree in communication at Virginia Tech.