Hi, my name is Lena, and welcome to Lena’s Kitchen.
You will always find me in my happy place… the kitchen! Music always playing in the background and most of the time a glass of rosé lingering on the island while I prepare a meal to share with my family or friends.
My passion and the purpose of my blog is simply this: to connect people and families through food and take the time to enjoy it. I create food that gathers people around the table while spending quality time together.
How Lena’s Kitchen got its start?
I remember posting photos of the food I would make on Instagram in 2011, photos were taken with my phone and they were bad. After a while, people started asking for recipes of what I would share… I always said, “what recipes? I don’t follow recipes,” still true to this day. I’m a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl. I love the challenge of opening the fridge, freezer or my cupboards and figuring out what to make. It’s like the show Chopped, daily.
While I worked full time at Nike for over 7.5 years as a Production Artist, I was also running Lena’s Kitchen after hours and on the weekends for 3 of those years. That was a few rough couple of years, doing both fulltime. But somehow I made it out alive.
Thankfully, on August 29, 2017, I got a call in the morning from HR at Nike telling me it was my last day there. It was the best day of my life… I celebrate that day as if I just finally started living. So there I was, now doing this whole blogging full time. The rest is history.
I like to create and share recipes that feature real ingredients, real food made for real people. My recipes are fresh, seasonal, mostly simple, often healthy, and sometimes prepared with cheese and butter in mind. Balance people, that’s what it’s all about.
Whether you’re new to the kitchen or have been cooking your entire life, I hope you’ll find the recipes and ideas here that will gather your family around the table and create memories that will last a lifetime.
Meet the Team of Lena’s Kitchen
I am married to the love of my life and my partner Shey Gladstone, a realtor. We live in Tigard, OR with our 3 kids, Nikita, Franchesca, and Tyler along with our furry babies Maddie who is an Irish Doodle and Ollie who is a miniature Schnoodle.
In January of 2020, I decided to hire a copywriter to help me with the writing of my blog posts. The recipes, styling, and photography are still all me. But, I needed help with more technical writing, which I am not as good at. So, I want to introduce you to Jackie, she is great and I am so glad to have her on my team.
Jackie Bogart combines her passions for both food and writing in her role as a Copywriter. With a professional background in online communications, Jackie has always shifted her career towards the creative side of the business, whether through content creation, social media management, or storytelling. Living in British Columbia, Jackie enjoys experimenting with different recipes and growing her Virtual Assistant business.