There\u2019s almost no excuse for her to ever go out to eat, she admits, but when she does, she pays attention to the flavor profile of dishes, so she can try to recreate them at home. There was basil in that dish of \u201cthe best chicken curry I\u2019ve ever had\u201d at a restaurant in St. Louis.<\/p>\n
Raising four children included teaching them how to make things like her signature chicken pot pie. Younger versions of Michael, Rebecca, Luc, and Sophie stood alongside their mom, measuring out a cup of flour and pinch of salt. As children do though, one by one they\u2019ve moved into kitchens of their own.<\/p>\n
But Gresham isn\u2019t left alone in her home near UConn Stamford<\/a>. Her nearly 23,000 Instagram followers are alongside, getting directions on how to make garlic scape pasta, blackberry cobbler, shortcut focaccia, her \u201cfamous\u201d spaghetti sauce, orange rolls, kohlrabi soup, and so much more.<\/p>\n When she started cooking, Gresham says she looked to people like Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, and Martha Stewart,, in the days before online recipe sharing. She also cultivated a collection of cookbooks – hardcovers and softcovers of Italian and French cuisine, her favorites; handwritten Christmas cookie recipes from a German friend penned in Deutsch; Grandma\u2019s cheesy potatoes on a recipe card, yes, printed in her own hand; even a copy of \u201cSemi-Homemade\u201d from chef Sandra Lee.<\/p>\n After a lifetime of kitchen experience, though, she says she rarely uses a recipe these days.<\/p>\n So, when her children have asked for written copies of that chicken pot pie recipe, for instance, Gresham would disappoint, telling them she never used exact measurements. \u201cI just do it, and it happens,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Life With Lori June<\/a>, the Instagram account that has exploded in followers since its inception in September 2023, is a way for her to start recording those recipes to share with family, friends, and the rest of us.<\/p>\n She admits it\u2019s also a way for her to keep teaching in the kitchen.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not about the followers. I love them and I appreciate all the comments and feedback. But this is just for me. — Lori Gresham<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not about the followers. I love them and I appreciate all the comments and feedback. But this is just for me. This is a hobby and a labor of love – and a place where my children can have all my recipes because I have to write them down to share with the audience,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n For so many years to get the children involved in the kitchen, she\u2019d tell them, \u201cLet me show you how I do it.\u201d It\u2019s a phrase that has morphed into her catchline at the start of each Instagram reel.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me show you how I do it,\u201d she says in her Arkansan accent, gesturing a left-handed thumbs-up to bring viewers to the stovetop, counter, or chopping board.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always understood a bit about marketing because of my work, and I do teach cognitive psychology, so I know what appeals to people: attention grabbing phrases, motion, color. It was never strategic, I just noticed that I kept saying, \u2018Let me show you how I do it.\u2019 It just came about organically,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n And Gresham knew she was onto something when at Thanksgiving last year one of her brothers was making themselves an Old Fashioned cocktail and wryly turned toward her and said, \u201cLet me show you how I<\/em> do it.\u201d<\/p>\n The signature black quarter zip fleece she wears in each reel, paired with black leggings and large drop earrings, are what Hugo, her husband of 25 years, jokingly refers to as her \u201cuniform.\u201d<\/p>\n But that too came about organically.<\/p>\n For years, after stepping across the threshold of her front door after a long day at work or otherwise out and about, they\u2019ve been her home comfies. The only time on Instagram that Gresham deviates outfits is at Christmas when seasonal pajamas are the requisite uniform for cookie making.<\/p>\n She often welcomes Hugo for regular appearances as a sous chef (and resident comedian). Son Luc played host in one reel to whip up a seafood pasta dish, and best friend Holly helped with an Easter sugar cookie recipe.<\/p>\n Gresham says she\u2019s learned along the way that she needs two pairs of the same glasses \u2013 one for near, the other for far sightedness \u2013 for consistency between takes, and that the tripod holding her phone camera ought to stay at the same height throughout filming. Both make editing easier.<\/p>\n As for what dishes she chooses to make, there\u2019s no master plan. Does she have a craving? What\u2019s in season? Have others on social media lent inspiration?<\/p>\n Each week Gresham says she plans two to three meals for her and her husband; he gets to choose the order. She films while making their lunch or their dinner, starting and stopping the big red button between steps and editing afterward.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s summer, and corn is in season. There\u2019s so many ways to eat corn, but today I\u2019m going to use it to make a fresh summer salad with a feta dressing that I found online, and it looks delicious. Let me show you how I do it.\u201d<\/p>\n The corn salad reel comes in the middle of a series on peaches: brown sugar peach shortcake, peach vinegar, fresh peach crumble, peach jam, peaches and cream cake. She\u2019d ordered a box of fruit from the Georgia Peach Truck, which stopped in Stamford in late July.<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t any recipe she wouldn\u2019t share, she says – a stark contrast to the nonnies of yesteryear whose Bolognese recipe was the equivalent of a state secret.<\/p>\n Gresham\u2019s pie crust recipe got 250,000 views, so did the one for her French vinaigrette.<\/p>\n Her curry recipes, which she says are her specialty, might be the closest to a state secret, if only because of the time it takes to make them and her goal to hold reels to about 90 seconds.<\/p>\n In 2008, Gresham traveled outside the United States for the first time, a month-long trip to France that still exudes its influence 17 years on.<\/p>\n \u201cI was changed forever,\u201d she says. \u201cIt changed so much. It changed our marriage, the way we look at the world, the way we think about our future, the way we think about food. It was an incredible experience from every perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n She and her husband rented an apartment and tried to live like locals as much as possible, she says, visiting farmers markets and making meals from whatever they found for sale.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the first time I ever saw a chicken outside of a farm \u2013 whole, with the head still on. And you take it home like that, although I did ask them to take care of that for me,\u201d she admits. \u201cThe chicken was different, so the cooking technique was a little bit different. I had to baby it a little more because it didn\u2019t have any fillers, no antibiotics. The texture of the meat was different, so there was a learning curve.\u201d<\/p>\n Traveling abroad to countries including Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, and Austria and staying for a prolonged time, long enough to visit markets and enjoy the kitchens of the places they rent, has become a focus for her and Hugo.<\/p>\n In 2019, Gresham taught a six-week study-abroad program in Italy. The couple fell so in love with the town where she stayed that they bought a home there a year later, a place to escape now and eventually retire.<\/p>\n This summer, Vienna was the destination for a month with UConn\u2019s Experiential Global Learning<\/a> program. There, after teaching psychology by day, she lived a dream 15 years in the making: sampling authentic tafelspitz, a boiled meat dish which is served with minced apples and horseradish.<\/p>\n Friends from Austria gave her a cookbook more than a dozen years ago featuring traditional recipes from the country, she explains, and while she\u2019s cooked other things from its pages, she says she refused to make tafelspitz, wanting first to try it at the restaurant featured in the book.<\/p>\n Gresham went to the restaurant twice, she says, first to simply enjoy, then to discern each flavor \u2013 the beef, the vegetables, the horseradish, the apples, the root vegetables.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was out of this world,\u201d she says. \u201cIt fulfilled all my wildest dreams of what it would taste like. I could have cried actually.\u201d<\/p>\n Long before Gresham embarked on international travel and before she\u2019d entered the world of academia, when she and her family were living in Ohio and she was home with children, she says she needed an outlet beyond macaroni and cheese and chicken fingers.<\/p>\n She opened a small food company, J\u2019aime le Crepes, and made French crepes and English cream in her home kitchen, sealing packages with a vacuum sealer and selling them to area gourmet stores. She even had a contract with the popular Cincinnati chain, Jungle Jim’s International Market.<\/p>\n \u201cI just called them one day and said, \u2018My name is Lori Gresham. I have a license to cook in my home,\u2019 and the next thing I knew they were shelving them, and I was doing cooking demos at the grocery store,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n For about a year, until her last baby arrived, she stood by the stove turning out crepes from a recipe she contrived after researching the best of the best.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t ask me for that recipe because I don\u2019t have it, and the kids would kill me for saying that. I think I could probably replicate it, but I didn\u2019t write it down,\u201d she says. \u201cI still make the English cream; it\u2019s on my Instagram. I used to serve it with gingerbread, but if you leave it plain you can use it as a coffee creamer or as a sauce. Sometimes we pour it over fruit and pancakes.\u201d<\/p>\n J\u2019aime le Crepes may have been short-lived, but learning to balance work and home helped Gresham when she went back to school in 2004 and earned her bachelor\u2019s, master\u2019s, and doctorate over the next eight years.<\/p>\n Because children and a husband relied on her to run the household and do the cooking, she had no choice but to stay grounded, she says, noting in a funny way that made grad school a little easier.<\/p>\n So, when she sees students today, especially those who might be struggling, she can empathize.<\/p>\n Gresham works closely with Husky Harvest Stamford<\/a>, and, with the help of a couple student interns, started the UConn Stamford Budget Bites<\/a> Instagram account to give pantry patrons tips on what they can make with items they find there.<\/p>\nLife with Lori June<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Account Came Together Organically<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Experiences Abroad Are Still an Influence<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Entrepreneur Turned Academic<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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