My name is Erin
Drello. I am a writer, a chef, a student,
a son, a brother, an uncle, a music lover, a philanthropist, and a glutton in
recovery. I have lived most of my life
in the great southern state of Georgia, with a very short stint in Tennessee. I
was a chef on Grand Cayman Island and ended up completely over serving myself
in more ways than one in beautiful Colorado.
Realizing my life was empty and needed a change, I turned to my southern
heritage for a place of healing and growth.
In the last eighteen months I have worked on improving my health, my
spirituality, my family life, my friendships, and my responsibilities within my
community. Through writing about my
sobriety and my love for music I have found myself being pulled into the
concepts of sustainability, minimalism, and community stewardship. This is where this story will begin. I have invited a couple of my culinary
mentors to take this literary journey into self-improvement through the ideas
of less is more, food feeds the soul, and now is the time for a revolution of
epic proportions.
Somewhere in
between leaving the dream of a successful culinary career behind and becoming the
typical salesman, I got fat, really, really fat. Not only fat physically, but spiritually and
emotionally as well. I was a walking cliché. Now that I have left the life of corporate
accounts, sales calls, and the soulless career quests behind, it is growth that
interests me. Personal growth, community
growth, the growth of plants and animals, and all other forms of growth that
makes life so grand are where my interests lie today. I am embarking on the adventure of a new life
of living local, buying used, and loving more.
This is a new world for me, and information is the key. For example, I read an article the other day
about the rebirth of the barter system and how people right here in America are
reverting back to this way of living in order to survive and finding out that
it has had a tremendous impact on how they want to live their lives from here
on out. This completely fascinated
me. Is it possible for me to reduce the
amount of interaction I have with the modern day transaction and the disease
that is spread through the all mighty dollar?
I am on a quest now for this type of growth and learning. I have always been one to shop at thrift
stores, but it was not until I bought $240 in retail value of clothes for $20
that I discovered there may be more to buying used than meets the eye. What impact on consumerism can I have by this
one simple idea? Hell, broken in blue
jeans always feel better anyways. Couple
these thoughts with realizing that the food I have been eating my whole life
has been poisoning me due to being genetically altered and chemically enhanced
for production, it is time for a change and a new way to live.
For the past
twenty two years I have lived my life in the fast lane. A highway to hell of never ending abuse of my
body, my fellow man, and even my mother earth was where I lived. Now that I have found my way back into the
sun light I am open minded and willing to relearn a new way to live. A simple life, with goats and pigs in the
back yard, homegrown tomatoes resting on homemade bread, and water heated
through solar power. Essentially a life
without commercials is what I seek.
Imagine that, finding a way out of buying any of the crap we are being
sold today. My name is Erin Drello, and
these are my thoughts and experiences on the road to a happy destiny.
