AW: Hello, Victoria—and welcome to the Halo universe! Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us about some of the amazing things you do?
VR: Hello, thank you for inviting me. I’m the author behind several video game cookbooks, including
Halo: The Official Cookbook, and
the video game themed food blog, Pixelated Provisions.
I develop recipes for food, drinks, and all sorts of consumables found throughout many video game worlds. My goal is to inspire my fellow gamers to get in the kitchen and make delicious meals from the titles they love playing.
AW: To start things off, when did you discover your passion for cooking and how did things evolve from there?
VR: I have been cooking for as long as I can remember. I was always in the kitchen helping out with dinner or outdoors with the grill. Food has been a way of communication and connection for me. I found that a meal was a great way to start a conversation and to get to know more about the people I was cooking for.
Fast forward to after I graduated from college and moved away from my family in Chicago to Houston, I decided it was time to reduce how much I was eating out and to try and make many recipes from scratch.
After a bit of learning and experimenting in the kitchen, friends began requesting I share my recipes. I started up a super generic food blog - just some recipes and a few terrible photos. I did that for about 6 months before I completely abandoned the project. A few months later, I started to get the itch again to share these recipes I was creating. This time I decided to add the theme of food found in video games.
Ten years ago, I started
Pixelated Provisions and it’s been going strong ever since.
AW: And from that point, how did you get started on this particular journey to writing about food in video games?
VR: I’ve always been interested in food in video games. I would become easily distracted by any food art that I found in games. I remember growing up I was super excited about chili dogs because of
Sonic, trying to imagine what Rare Candy would taste like from
Pokemon, or just trying to convince my parents to take us out to a restaurant that served some of the delicious food my
Sims were eating.
My culinary journey truly kicked off when I started playing
Guild Wars 2 and I began leveling up my Chef skills. I was so impressed by the amount of detail the development team put into each of the recipes. You start by mixing some basic staples, like seasoning mixtures, sauces, and basic doughs. From there, you use those items and other ingredients to make the final dish. Each one gives your character a boost to help you during your quest.
I immediately started taking notes and setting up Pixelated Provisions to begin expanding my culinary skills. From then on, I spent a lot of extra time in all the games I played staring at any hint of food there. I’ve also taught many of my friends, because there are so many games to play, that if they see food to send me all the screenshots.
AW: Speaking as somebody with a very similar journey in opening pathways through finding a particular “niche” and writing about it, this is awesome to hear!
