On this episode of Taste Buds with Deb, host Debra Eckerling speaks with Emily Paster, author of “Epic Air Fryer Cookbook” and “Instantly Mediterranean,” among others.

While food was always a big part of her life, and even though she had an aunt in the food business, it initially didn’t occur to Paster, a former lawyer, that food was a possible career path,

“If you … cast your mind back to the 1980s and 1990s, food did not have the place in our culture that it does today,” she says. “Even when I was practicing [law], I was at my desk, researching the next restaurant I wanted to go to, planning the next dinner party I was going to host [or] dreaming about what was going to be at the farmer's market that week.”

After having kids and staying home with them - “My husband's also a lawyer and two lawyers and two kids was a lot,” she explains - Paster started a food and parenting blog that then transitioned to a food blog, called West of the Loop.

Paster talks about her culinary career journey, air fryer cooking, her pet peeve about salt, and more. She also shares her lamb and bulgur kofta air fryer recipe, which you can find at JewishJournal.com/podcasts.

Get additional recipes from Emily Paster at WestoftheLoop.com. For more from Taste Buds, subscribe on iTunes and YouTube, and follow @TheDEBMethod on social media.