What Does LFM Mean?
LoveFoodMore
What started off as a meme turned into so much more. You may be familiar with the early meme, “I love food, more than I love people.” I don’t know why but when I was a kid in my early teens I found that hilarious. Instagram was just taking off so I change my username to, “Lovefoodmore”. This seemed to work with everything in my life. As an obese child you could say I loved food more than most things. I loved food more than dance, art, walking, music… the list could go on really. The meaning of those 3 words changed over the years of my life. With that, the vision of my brand continued to take shape and my ideas became clearer on what I wanted to do.
My life in Categories. Love.
Love. Food. More. I tried living a life for a while where I seperated my life in categories. This was my way for trying to find balance in my life. Whether it was family and friends or work and play. I started sharing posts about my love life and things involving family. I was just teasing the idea of becoming a blogger. Not that it was something I ever saw myself doing, it was just something I saw myself doing in my down time. (What down time!?) Love was a fun category to post about because growing up I’m realizing that maybe I don’t know how to love.
I was a flirt in my street youths days, of course but to actually love someone was a hard subject for me to wrap my head around. So as I continued to document my love life and the people that were irreplaceable in my life I continued to learn about what I look for in partner. I started to realize the traits in my family that I admired or despised. Love is interesting because we can change what we love. To continue to love something or someone is a continued project. As things change in your life so do your feelings. But if you have a real unconditional love, you would learn to love it throughout the changes, in spite of the faults and forever.
My life in categories. Food.
The food category. Needless to say this was about all things relating to food. Eating out, cooking at home, favorite restaurants, ect. If it was edible I was about it. (Within reason.. come on now!)
I attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park New York. Everywhere on campus I saw the flag that food is life! Well sounds like I just ripped that saying off from them right? Well you’re 100% right. I was one of those die hard culinary students. In the library all night till closing. I took home pounds and pounds of potatoes to practice my knife skills as well as joined nearly every club on campus. Food is life. If food was really life, my idea was to get people to love their lives a bit more. If food was life, we should….. you guessed it. LOVEFOODMORE! My whole ethos around food was that food was life. I wrapped everything around food and cooking. Let me explain something… that has changed slightly. As I evolved my brand into a social media company specializing in all things food I had to narrow it down. Meaning I had to take the 3rd category; More and not making it mean “more” random stuff I like to do. At this point it probably doesn’t make any sense. It all comes down to this.
My new saying evolved right around the time I started tik tok. ” I know you love food, lets see if we can get you to love food more.” The vision has never been more clear.
My life in categories: More
Love food more. When I started my first blog (this is my 4th time building a blog) I wanted to write about my other hobbies and joys of life. This would all fit into the “more” category of the blog. Whether it was dance, music, art or whatever!
It would fit in this section. More. More. More. Gimme, gimme, gimme. But that vision has changed since then. I am all about the food and I realized I have to niche it down just a bit. This is not all about me but these are my takes and sharing my thoughts, skills and more through my eyes. “I know you love food, lets see if we can get you to love food more”. There is no limit to love. It has the ability to grow over time and also has the opportunity to become weaker. My hopes are with the constant binge of my content your relationship with food and all things correlated with it will become stronger.
About Chef Joshua Walbolt
Joshua Walbolt was born on September 30th in Minneapolis. He spent most of
his life growing up in Anoka where eventually his family moved to Elk River where the interest
in a career as a culinary artist began. Joshua is a 2 time state champion in the pro-start
culinary competitions and has competed in national cooking competitions while just in high
school. He was titled Top Chef at Walt Disney Worlds flagship restaurant, California Grill in a
series of mystery basket challenges. Walbolt has worked in New York City for Iron Chef
Morimoto where he trained in the art of sushi and opened Morimoto Asia in Disney Springs.
Classically trained in French cuisine at the Culinary institute of America, he is inspired by his
Cambodian and Thai roots as well as the other cultures and bold flavors of Southeast Asia.
Mentorship has been an important part of his career as he has trained under the likes
of Minnesota Chefs, Alex Roberts, Gavin Kaysen, and Tom Kavanaugh. With an intention to
give back to the program and the mentors that “jump started” his career Joshua served as a
judge in the 2017 MN Prostart culinary competition. He is mentoring the Elk River High School
team as they prepare for this years competition and spent some time with Osseo High School
as well. Giving back to the community is something Josh strives to do as well, as he has
volunteered to cook at homeless shelters, feed my starving children on multiple occasions,
hosted bake sales for No Kid Hungry, and volunteered at the chefs Gala to raise awareness
about Autism in NYC.
Back in 2016 Joshua was chosen as Top 10 young chefs in the U.S by San Pellegrino
to compete in their global talent search. The esteemed judges that the young chefs prepared
their signature dishes for were, Dominque Crenn, Alex Stupak, Emma Bengtsson, Bryce
Shuman, and Vincent Petrillo. At the time; 22, Joshua was the youngest to compete that year
in NYC for the chance to represent the U.S in Milan against 21 other countries. He did not win
this competition but the winner of the U.S took the world title as, “San Pellegrino’s Young
Chef.” Walbolt has been involved in 4 restaurant openings and begins this year thinking about
his 5th. “I’m excited to announce my newest project, but I can’t spill the beans just yet.”
Walbolt owned a Private Chef and Catering business for 2 years while in Florida and is now
launching his Pop-Up Concept, “Khmaiyan Kitchen” which he explains it as a, “Khmer-Thai
guy and Filipina girl cooking food they want to eat”. Until the newest project is announced, we
can expect to see Walbolt with his fiance hosting more Pop-ups in the Twin Cities.