The Global Palette: 1st Place Trophy for Best Recipe, Deep Roots, and My Culinary Journey
My love for food and my creative flair didn’t start with a formal certificate—it has been a lifelong obsession guided by my global adventures. The creative spark was there from the very beginning, back when I was a nine-year-old kid intricately decorating cakes and cutting up beautiful fruit displays to enter in local fall fairs back in Canada. Growing up as the second oldest in a busy household of six kids, I instinctively craved creativity, appreciated beauty in nature and loved the art of presentation. I also always had an obsession with the holidays and I think that comes from my dad.
That natural instinct for building bold, unforgettable flavor profiles was eventually put to the ultimate test when Food52 and Pinterest hosted a massive national competition, inviting creators to submit an original recipe alongside the story of what food truly meant to them. Against thousands of entries across the country, my dish won the grand prize: a $2,000.00 cash reward, a custom apron, a trophy, and a best recipe award certificate.
But long before that trophy, my path was shaped by a household that taught me the true meaning of hard work, comfort, and community.
Snowy Days, Simple Comforts, and a Dedicated Home
I lost my dad back in 2008, and some of my favorite early memories are tied to the cozy childhood times during Canadian winters. My dad was a carpenter who worked grueling, physical hours. When bad weather & snow rolled in and the construction sites shut down, he would take over the kitchen to treat us. He would slice potatoes into perfect, thick circles, frying them up in hot batches and showering them with salt to serve up homemade French fries. My siblings and I would sit together in the warm kitchen, eating those crispy fries or sharing a cheese and cracker plate and drinking cold root beer while watching hockey games on tv.
While my dad worked those long construction hours, my mom was the ultimate heartbeat of our home as a stay-at-home mother. Raising six children back in the day was an immense physical undertaking. Without cell phones or a driver’s license, managing the laundry, cooking, and everyday life was a true mission. She would catch the bus with us to take us to the park or the public library every single week, she read to us every night and taught us how to read before we even entered school.
My mom focused her energy on giving us experiences, but she also built special food traditions. She made homemade pizzas from scratch to pack into our school lunchboxes, and every year for our birthdays she would ask us what meal we wanted for dinner. I always chose lasagna & she made me a phenomenal, rich blueberry cheesecake that turned me into a lifelong “blueberry monster”. She mastered slow-cooked beef and tomato stews and a dessert I remember as a baked lemon custard topped with sweet meringue. Of course, cooking for a massive family had its quirks. My mom made a chicken fried rice that my dad loved, but I dreaded it as a kid because she would always leave large chunks of intensely spicy ginger in the recipe! It tested my childhood tastebuds, but it taught me early on how a single ingredient can dominate a plate.
Foraging, Wild Berries, and the Deep Roots of Farm-to-Table
Living on an acreage surrounded by sprawling farms in Ontario is where I developed my deep, intense connection with nature and the land. Long before “farm-to-table” became a mainstream restaurant catchphrase, I was living it as a child. My dad built our family a massive greenhouse from the ground up, and we established a thriving vegetable garden. Around that same time, I got my very first horse, and my world expanded completely into the outdoors. I remember wandering around in the woods for hours with my horse ‘Major’ following me around like a big puppy.
We had a massive, vibrant raspberry patch on our property, and I spent hours wandering through the bushes, eating fresh sun-warmed raspberries straight off the stems. We would forage for wild Saskatoon berries, collect native hazelnuts dropping from the trees (I’ll never forget trying to pick the tiny spiky hairs out of my finger!), and trade fresh produce with our neighbors who also ran large family gardens.
It was a beautiful, completely free-range childhood that kids today simply don’t get to experience on their own. My neighborhood friends and I would spend entire days climbing towering trees, building forts from fallen trees, wandering completely undetected through random farm properties, and sprinting across open cow pastures trying to outrun local bulls. We would hike for miles up through rugged beaver dams, climb local the local mountain ridge, and track paths to a hidden waterfall miles up the road where we literally drank from a stream because back then kids didn’t have water bottles!
Of course, life is incredibly fast-paced, and as busy parents, we all have crazy days and like to utilize quick kitchen shortcuts. But nothing beats sitting down to a scratch-made, home-cooked meal. My son has grown up seeing the immense effort, care, and technique that goes into every single plate I serve. He truly respects and craves home-cooked meals because, let’s be entirely honest—heading out for takeout or spending hard-earned money at mid-range, casual fine dining spots so often ends in total disappointment. Real flavor, deep connection, and restaurant-quality comfort can start right at your own kitchen counter.
But my actual connection to food and nature goes back even further, to the absolute first food memories I have in this world. When I was just four and five years old, I’d go tracking out to the roaring rivers of the Canadian Rockies in Alberta to catch rainbow trout with my dad, and later, fishing for pickerel all over Ontario. We would pull up onto an isolated island to clean our catch right there on the rocks. My dad would start a little outdoor campfire, coat the fresh fish in a little bit of flour and simple seasoning, and fry it up right in a pan of sizzling hot butter.
Experiencing that full cycle—catching your own food, cleaning it in the fresh air, and cooking it over a real fire—planted a seed in me from the very beginning. My dad passed away back in 2008, but I still keep his physical tacklebox and his original fishing tackle right with me. It is the exact same box he used when I was a little kid, and it stands as a daily reminder of where my love for the outdoors and real, honest food truly began.
The Secret Awakening: Letting the Garlic Flow
The absolute biggest culinary defining factor of my childhood was a single missing ingredient: garlic. Because my dad absolutely could not tolerate or digest it, garlic was strictly banned from our household. I spent my first 17 years in a completely garlic-free world. I can’t even imagine my poor mom trying to cook all her recipes with no garlic!
The moment I moved out on my own at 17, focused on fitness and weight training, I stepped into the hospitality industry. Tasting real, professionally executed food laced with rich, roasted garlic for the very first time was a total sensory awakening. My palate came alive, and from that exact moment onward, I made a personal vow: let the garlic flow!
Launching Globally: Back-of-House Roots to Front-of-House Mastery
My kitchen career began in the back of the house at a busy pizza restaurant when I was 14, where everything was done the old-school way—pouring active yeast into water, measuring out oils, and running heavy commercial dough-making equipment to proof and roll pristine dough from scratch.
As I grew, I intentionally transitioned into front-of-house roles at busy pubs, clubs, and popular restaurants to successfully launch and fund my global travel finances. This path took me backpacking through the vibrant street food stalls of Thailand and Borneo, Malaysia, eating local barbecues and visiting street vendors while living in South Korea.
Backpacking through Thailand was a total wild card for my palate. I survived on hungover plates of Thai fried rice and fresh pineapple, alongside face-meltingly spicy green curries loaded with mysterious pale circular meatballs where you just didn’t ask questions about the meat. But my ultimate triumph was heading to a tiny local fish market and treating my tight backpacker budget to a single, massive grilled prawn that was honestly the literal size of my head. It was absolute luxury on a shoestring.
My time in Borneo took things to an even crazier level of adventure. Outside of Kuching, we hit up an awesome night market where I had a whole fresh snapper wrapped in banana leaves and roasted directly over glowing charcoal—to this day, it is still one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life.
The deep jungle was a true test of endurance. We traveled for two grueling days by minivan, piled into a motorized longboat to navigate upriver, and hiked into a camp to stay with an indigenous Iban family inside a traditional longhouse. The hospitality was incredible and the experience unforgettable, but the unfamiliar jungle food was more than my stomach could handle. It was a wild, raw introduction to global street food and a clear reminder that not every adventure is meant for every palate.
From there, my global adventures took me to South Korea, where I fell completely in love with the food culture. I lived on crispy little street fish, authentic mandu dumplings, and kimbap—those seaweed rice rolls packed with egg. My absolute favorite experience was traditional Korean barbecue. I loved sitting around the tables with hot coals burning right in front of you, watching the servers bring out fresh meat and cut it up right at the table with scissors. They would hand you these fresh, heart-shaped perilla leaves to slather with intense, savory nut pastes and sauces, wrapping the grilled meat into a perfect little flavor bomb. Then, traveling all the way through Australia, I experienced the ultimate late-night food ritual: smashing a massive, sauce-heavy drunken kebab right outside the nightclubs at two in the morning. Street food there was pure survival, culture, and high-energy comfort all wrapped into one.
But the back of the house was always calling my name. The true peak of my professional hospitality career was forged in the high-intensity markets of Calgary and Whistler.
In Calgary, I completely immersed myself in elite hospitality execution and high-stakes corporate launches. I worked for a prominent restaurateur family that owned quite a few operations, helping them scale and launch a brand-new location from the ground up alongside a dedicated team. My performance there was so strong that ownership hand-selected and transferred me directly to their busy location in Whistler, British Columbia, where I worked two full-time front-of-house jobs simultaneously, worked my tail off, and lived and ate like royalty in that world-class resort scene.
Back in Calgary, I also helped launch an incredibly busy, upscale sushi restaurant, further refining my literacy in premium flavor profiles and precise presentation. I also really enjoyed my time working at the award-winning Vintage Chophouse, where memorizing every complex ingredient, tracing exact sourcing origins, mapping out texture balances, offering tableside food services like preparing Caesar salads from scratch to serve customers, and mastering wine pairings demanded elite menu literacy. I wasn’t just carrying plates; I studied the food and became an expert at translating a chef’s vision directly to the palate.
Beyond fine dining, I spent multiple years in a row enduring the absolute logistical chaos of the Calgary Stampede. I was working multiple busy hospitality jobs at the same time, slinging drinks, waitressing, and managing at an upscale sushi restaurant. We would pull insane, grueling 14-hour shifts under pure pressure. At the end of a shift, we would crawl home completely dead on our feet and order the ultimate comfort food: a massive Chinese takeout combo where you got to pick five items. Someone would show up at the door with two or three giant paper bags overflowing with food, and we would just gorge ourselves and instantly pass out cold. It was a rush, we had a ton of fun, and the money I saved funded my global adventures and travel.
Building My Life in Layers: From the Rockies to Northern Australia
My love for food and nature isn’t a trend; it’s something that has been building in layers for decades. After my culinary adventures in Calgary and the mountains of Whistler, my journey took a massive leap across the ocean to the Northern Territory of Australia. I spent a decade living in Darwin, working in hospitality before taking a non-creative desk job that completely sucked the life out of me because it had no room for my creative flair.
But Darwin is where my culinary palette truly exploded. Surrounded by influences from Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, I was introduced to a whole new world of flavor. Our very first home in Darwin was a tropical food paradise—we had a massive tamarind tree that we would grind straight into fresh curry pastes, and a Kensington Pride mango tree that grew the best mangoes you can get. We even had a hidden starfruit bush that kept us guessing for a while when our dog started getting an upset stomach; we finally figured out he had been sneaking into the backyard and helping himself to the fallen fruit!
My husband and I were regulars at the Mindil Beach Sunset Markets and the Parap Markets, eating giant paellas and the famous Mary’s Laksas—a fiery chicken soup loaded with big pieces of fried tofu and roast pumpkin. I fell in love with the vibrant green pawpaw salads pounded fresh with crushed peanuts and chilies, the sweet coconut cakes, and dipping crispy spring rolls (poh piah) into a sweet carrot dipping sauce. Darwin also introduced me to an unbelievable Greek community. Attending the Greek Glenti festival and hanging out with my husband’s friends opened my eyes to some of the best cooks I know and the joy of charcoal-cooked lamb, braised lamb shanks, marinated chickpeas & grilled haloumi, spectacular fresh seafood, and phenomenal grilled octopus. The absolute freshness of the tropics and the Darwin food scene fundamentally changed the way I looked at food.
The NC Test Kitchen: Acreage, Southern Flavors & Our Farm Bubble
After a decade in the tropics, our global adventures took us across the world to North Carolina. Once we settled into the American South, we bought our very first acreage—planting a massive garden and welcoming a gorgeous, broccoli-loving Pitbull into our family who quickly became my chief kitchen taste-tester. A few years later, we moved just a bit further out to our next acreage, an even bigger property where we went all in, that became my ultimate working test kitchen and our absolute sanctuary.
When COVID hit, that farm became our isolated paradise and our sanity. My husband built a giant treehouse and a zipline for the kids, and we spent our days going on property adventures and winding down around a huge fire pit. Our house became the ultimate host house where my son celebrated his birthdays with his friends inside our safe little farm bubble.
Chilis on the Grill, Collard Greens & Deep Southern Heritage
Living in North Carolina completely transformed my cooking style. I started working for a local craft beer and barbecue spot, as well as a southern catering company, which introduced me to real North Carolina barbecue—from the sweet molasses styles to the sharp vinegar sauces. I fell completely in love with Ash County hoop cheese, southern pimento cheese, chow chow, and fresh collards. To this day, finely chopped collard greens (never the stems!) are one of my absolute favorite vegetables to grow, cook, and toss into everything from stews to stir-fries.
Our organic garden and pasture chickens went into overdrive. On those blazing hot summer days, the land overflowed with giant leeks, butternut squashes, basketfuls of crisp cucumbers, and tomatoes. We even cultivated our own mushrooms and grew sweet blueberries. But the real showstoppers were my husband’s chilis—one year he harvested around 400 chilis, completely obsessed with everything from chocolate habaneros to ghost peppers and Carolina reapers. After he tried making his intense chili sauces inside the kitchen once and practically burned my eyes out, I banned him to the outdoor barbecue grill plate, where he would happily cook down his legendary fiery mango-habanero sauces in the open air!
I regularly shared our rich garden harvests, fresh eggs, and test recipes with our local community, especially with a dear friend whom I later lost to pancreatic cancer. She was one of a kind, a fellow nature lover who raised monarch butterflies, grew milkweed and helped play chicken veterinarian with me. She was also one of my biggest supporters & most honest taste-tester🖤.
Feeding the people around me from that beautiful land brought me a profound sense of pride.
Crafting a Legacy: Real Food, Real Pride
Long before I started this digital kitchen, I always tried my best to feed my family real, wholesome food. When our son was a baby, back in Australia, I loved making him homemade meals like slow-cooked chicken stews and comforting lamb stews right from my kitchen. Don’t get me wrong—I am definitely not a perfect, flawless chef! Like any busy mom, if I am tired or short on time, I am absolutely buying a frozen pizza or store-bought gluten-free pie crusts to save my sanity.
But finding that realistic balance with food took on an entirely new meaning in 2015 when our son faced an autoimmune illness. Since his school didn’t offer safe gluten-free lunch options, and we needed to keep his body as healthy as possible, I spent years packing his daily lunches with nutritionally dense meats and fresh vegetables. I used to love bringing our fresh garden produce, butternut squashes, and fresh eggs into the school for the staff. I even started packing loaded meat and layered veggie sandwiches for one of his teachers who was also gluten-free.
To any other allergy or gluten-free parents out there who know the daily exhaustion of packing safe food: I see you! But I promise you, it can become a beautiful point of joy. By the time he hit high school in Montana his lunchboxes had become flat-out legendary at school. I used to get nonstop texts from parents laughing because their kids came home demanding to know why my son always had the best food! Even though we just moved back from Australia and are currently living in a busy neighborhood with no vegetable garden, that deep heart for sharing food has never changed. That joy of feeding people follows me into our community traditions. Every year at our regular events, like my friend’s annual St. Patrick’s Day party, there are specific, signature show-stoppers that people look forward to all year long. The second I walk through the door, the first question is always: “Jen, did you bring the Pavlovas?” And the answer is always an absolute yes.
At the end of the day, I am always the absolute last person to sit down at the dinner table. I just love making sure everyone is happy, safe, and completely fed. Whether it’s an everyday school lunchbox, a family dinner, or a viral, once a year dyed spooky Halloween treat, putting love onto a plate is the true heartbeat behind Bacon & Spice.
Classical French Foundation
To formalize decades of high-volume hospitality experience, global palate development, recipe testing and community cooking, I completed professional classical French culinary training in Sydney, Australia. Earning my certification and immediately stepping onto the line of a busy French bistro gave me the rigorous technical structure and discipline that now sit alongside everything else that shaped me.
Today, Bacon and Spice is where front-of-house hospitality expertise, decades of food appreciation, and classical French technique meet. I take the cozy, nostalgic foods that make us feel connected and elevate them into restaurant-quality comfort food you can easily create in your own kitchen.
~Chef Jen Galton❤️
