I’m Lauren!

Welcome to Lauren Cooks! I’m so, so thrilled that you’re here.

Lauren Cooks is where I share the recipes I ate growing up in Indiana, the ones my mom still keeps in a white binder in her pantry. Some were torn out of magazines, but most are written on stained index cards in her friends’ handwriting, recipes I recognize from going to their houses for picnics and parties.

My first introduction to cooking was the Alpha-Bakery Children’s Cookbook, published by Gold Medal Flour in 1987. As a kid, it blew my mind that I could follow the steps and POOF! banana bread. Or POOF! chocolate chip cookies. I felt like a Michelin chef every time that cookbook came out.

As an adult, I’ve moved on to recipes that aren’t quite as straightforward, so I have my fair share of disasters in the kitchen: forgetting the oats (a key ingredient!) in ANZAC biscuits in Australia, topping sweet potato casserole with chopped up pink marshmallows in London, and leaving out the rising agent in rice cooker carrot cake while in Korea. But I love to try new things, and I’m excited to see how Lauren Cooks grows and evolves.

I eat largely vegetarian but not exclusively, so expect these recipes to lean veg. My two sisters and their partners are vegan, so you’ll see some vegan versions of our childhood favorites here too.

I’m a maximizer, which means I try to only bring things into my house that I love. That’s especially true in my kitchen, where I have oddly strong feelings about the things I use to cook with, and of course I will be sharing those items here.

I’ve moved around a LOT (read more about that in my travel blog, Lateral Movements), but currently live in Atlanta with my husband and work full-time in marketing for a creator-focused company.

Thank you so much for being here!