I never do things by halves. Go big or go home, right? Why plant 5 okra plants when I could plant 50 (ask me about the okra patch incident sometime, I hurt my back so badly I could hardly walk for a week). Why make 10 soaps when I can make 80? Why have 8 chickens when I can have 50? Why move to the next town when I can move to an entirely different country 5000 miles away?
OK so you get the picture, I am unable to do anything small. There are positives and negative to this, but I have come to accept this is who I am and try to manage risk and forge forward as big as I can (or until my husband says no, like he did to 50 turkeys last year and thank goodness he did because 17 was a whole lot of work to process)
When I started to put together my soap business website I knew it was another opportunity to "go big". So I have not one but TWO blogs! I have a general blog which I hope you guys will get to know me and my family a little bit, I have been told many times we should write a book of some of our farm stories so I guess I am testing the water with some mini-stories in this blog.
Then, I have a blog with recipes, some of the dishes I have cooked on TV and some that are our families tried and true, well tested favorites. Food is a big passion of mine and I love to share the knowledge that I have worked so hard to accumulate over the years. I have always loved to bake since I was old enough to do so. However cooking was a whole other situation, I just never learned, wasn't interested at all. I remember my first night after moving out of my parents house. I arrived at university, my parents had dropped me off and my Mam left me with a baked potato and homemade spaghetti sauce. I had unpacked my boxes and heated up my food and I will never forget eating that meal and thinking "what on earth am I going to eat tomorrow?". Well I had a very sharp learning curve and not only learned to cook, but how to cook pretty well! I always say I went to university to study Sociology & Cultural studies but really I went to university to learn how to cook! My first year was pretty hit and miss, but by my second year I was hosting roast Sunday lunches for 15+ students. Fortunately they were not picky and gratefully ate almost anything (although there was the time I had a big fail on some brussel sprouts, for some reason they were so hard when dropped out of our 15th floor window they bounced!). Then by the third year I was engaged to my husband who was a very willing volunteer to try and test everything I came up with. And that is how I fell in love with food and people. It is so much fun to feed people, I cant even begin to imagine how many people I have fed over the years, and have enjoyed doing so. Of course I have my family to feed everyday now, which is some days can be a battle (our youngest is almost through a picky phase, almost), but for the most part feeding my family is one of the biggest joys of my day.
Whichever blog posts you read, I hope you see my passion for people, cooking and country life through the posts. I always love to hear from folks so please leave some comments and if you ever use a recipe post a pic!