Greetings! I'm Wendy Miller.
I hope you find things on this blog easy reading and easy recipe making... since I began cooking and actually knowing how to "do some kitchen stuff", I have always consulted a recipe and then somewhere in the middle I end up finding my own way. Feel free to do that with anything you find here as well - the only time you have to be exactly precise with recipe making is in baking - which I do not do very often. If you are a rule follower when it comes to cooking, by all means, follow the measures and specifics I have laid out here. If you feel comfortable to venture out, then find your own way 😁.
I started this BLOG in 2018 as a way to catalog the things I love to cook, and share some more intimate details on the ever-changing cycles of my life. That seems to be the one constant - change. My advice is, EMBRACE! Change always, always happens. You might as well go with the flow. You can't 'change' that!
Back in 2018 my husband and I were doing a pretty intense low carb lifestyle - we didn't track all the macros for keto, but I did keep a pretty close count on the actual carbs going in during a day, and we generally kept it below 20. With COVID-19 showing up, and us making some changes in our lifestyle and where and how we work, I must confess I got a little un-inspired. A little? Well, a lot. We started hoarding and cooking a lot of rice and pasta. And Bread. Damn bread tastes so good, I sure did miss it! I stopped writing about food & stuff, and just put my head down and worked. And ate. And worked.
I felt so helpless for everyone who was and still is suffering - either in actually fighting the disease or losing a job over it, or losing a loved one to it. I re-joined the Board of Directors of The Humane Society of Blue Ridge humanesocietyofblueridge.org (I did their website as a part of that by the way). This was one area where I can give back and - who doesn't love helping little furry ones? So that started to take up the time that I used to spend putting this blog together and cooking and experimenting. But now, almost a full year in, I am finding some balance and a growing need inside to get things rolling in the kitchen and with my blog again.
My husband (follow him on Instagram @joesbiggreen to see some of his cooking masterpieces) and I don't have any children - we do have a fantastic Black German Shepard named Kendall whom we adopted in March of 2020. Her parents could not care for her anymore and she was 6 & 1/2. We had lost our dog Benton the year before (you can read about him in my blog) and our cat Amy was growing weak. We lost Amy in July, she was 16, but I wasn't ready to let her go - who is ever ready, really? But we are so glad Kendall is in our lives, she is a kind soul and we could not be luckier! Here she is with us below.
So, what you will find here is a mix of easy-is, rich, tasty (I think!) recipes that I created or borrowed to make my own. I hope you like them. I love to cook and this is a fun way to share that experience with others.
I have a section here for crowd-pleaser recipes - we used to have a lot of people over quite often to our mountain retreat, having dinner for 14 was kind of a regular thing. But, all that has changed now and we roll with the punches. Someday we will get back to that - but until then, I hope you find comforting, enjoyable food here... after all, most of them start with some butter and salt!
Take good care of yourself & eat great food!
Wendy