Crafting meals at home is a way of life for Alesia Flint. For three years, she’s offered a public glimpse into her kitchen via Instagram, regularly dropping photos of meals she concocts, whether it’s a pimento cheese BLT, maple-mustard glazed salmon, or French toast topped with apricots.
“I’ve always cooked, even since I was a kid,” says Flint, a mail services specialist with Old National Bank. “When my son was younger, I stayed home for his first five years and got bored. I’d go to the library to get cookbooks and would try a new meal a week, and I learned a lot from that.”
Believing meals should look attractive while also satisfying the palate, Flint tries to stuff each meal with as many different colors, flavors, and textures as possible. She also plans around what’s already stocked in her freezer and pantry. “I tend to cook meals that are more labor or time intensive on weekends and quick easy meals on weekdays,” she explains, adding that her husband, Chris, “is a willing taste-tester.”
Nutrition is always considered. Flint strives for a wide variety of foods while incorporating plenty of fresh, seasonal vegetables, and local growers play a prominent role. “Urban Seeds has a Nourish program, and it’s incredibly good value,” she says. “You get nice, beautiful, local produce, and I take advantage of that. Sometimes, I’ll go to the Market on Main and the Franklin Street Bazaar, and I’ll see what’s there. I lean more toward choosing the meat first and then picking sides. I’ll get a grab bag of produce and figure out what I can make with it. … It’s forced me to get creative.”
Creativity also applies to Flint’s cocktails. She photographs plenty of those for Instagram, sometimes pairing them with certain dishes or sipping one as she cooks. Each is poured into thrifted vintage glassware so it doesn’t just sit on the shelf. Her go-to mixes? “I’m a bourbon girl sometimes, and I do a smoked old-fashioned,” she says. “I’m not really a gin girl, but I did do a blackberry gin fizz that was delicious. I love a classic margarita, and you can put in any fruit you want — I’ve done a jalapeño margarita and an avocado margarita. The jungle bird” — typically made with rum, Campari, pineapple and lime juices, and a sweetener — “is one of my favorite cocktails.”
Flint says her next step in sharing her love of cooking is likely a podcast.“I don’t know if I want to focus on recipes or techniques, but how you learn and how you can adapt,” she says. “There are a lot of people who don’t know how to start (cooking) and are intimidated.” She’s already chosen a name — Speaking in Tongs — and hopes to have episodes out by the end of the year.
The podcast will promote ideals that Flint says she’s learned in her own kitchen: There’s always something new to try or discover, she says, and “you can make something out of almost anything.”
