Karin Duncker

Cooking in my heels is a blog featuring the recipes, observations and general ramblings of a highly qualified yet under-employed executive and serious food lover in her fabulous shoes. Karin Duncker, the blog's author, is the under-employed executive. She lives in Manhattan, and cooks up a storm in her ‘modest’ (being polite here) kitchen. Her command of the kitchen and securing fabulous shoes (at discount) are legendary, at least in her circle of hungry and shoeaholic friends. Karin started writing her blog Cooking in My Heels in August 2011 to share her love of food and insights on surviving that ‘in between jobs’ time and life in general with humor and sanity intact (mostly)... all while wearing fabulous shoes.

So, who am I, really? Well, you would have to buy me a cocktail and definitely a really nice dinner to hear the whole story, but for now there's this: I'm a card carrying charter member of the 'I live for food' congregation. It's pretty much genetic for me. Oma was a classically trained cook. Mom learned from the master and added to that base with the talent to whip up loaves and fishes out of pretty much anything available, bake kitty-cat cakes, and create roses from radishes and penguins from hard-boiled eggs, olives and carrots. There's no denying it...I was born for food. I was also born with food memory. As a toddler when told, "we are going to Tante Gertrude, I'd reply, "that's where we had cherry pie... I was 4, it was destiny. So that's the cooking part, but the heels? I've been many things in my life so far: biology teacher, corporate trainer, Bitch Queen of Biotech (a self-assigned title meaning ran a biotech non-profit), pimped lawyers to the life science industry (technically called a Director of Life Science Development for the resume, naturally), a consultant, and unemployed. And through this seemingly unrelated string of careers was one common denominator -- shoes. Regardless of the budget, this gal loves her some shoes! And as any woman knows, no matter how crappy you think you look, you always feel beautiful in a fabulous pair of heels. So what does a food driven unemployed gal DO with all those fabulous shoes? Wear them in the kitchen! All that fine Italian leather gets lonely, and as a pick me up on a blue day of countless resumes (and too many 'no thank yous'), there's nothing better. Voila! Cooking in my heels was born!