Where it all began—

I inherited my love for cooking from my mom, who inherited hers from her mom… and so on and so forth. My very first memories of preparing food were in my grannies kitchen. It was a hot summer in the middle of Oklahoma. I was three years old standing on a wooden stool (couldn’t quite reach the counter yet) homemade apron tied, crafting biscuits from scratch. This became a ritual during my summers spent with my granny. She made that good, home-cooked-southern-soul food… arguably the best; And so started my love for food…

My mom didn’t make a fortune when we were growing up. With five children it was always difficult to make ends meet. Somehow she always made sure we enjoyed a home cooked meal for dinner. Over the years I stood by my moms side and became her (self-appointed) sous-chef. We prepared breakfast, lunch, dinner, and absolutely everything in between. Her face lit up when she was in the kitchen- it was fun.

She taught me how important and impactful it is to gather ’round the table and share a meal with the ones you love. This is one of the things that made me absolutely fall in love with food. It can be shared by anyone- differences aside. Food does not discriminate; it doesn’t care about gender, culture, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, religious beliefs. We can all put our differences aside and enjoy a meal together— doesn’t that make your heart smile?

Over the last few years my mom and I have been dabbling in local city and farmers’ markets, collecting dusty cook books from thrift stores, and concocting our very own versions of it all. We have spent days upon days with our noses deep in the pages of cookbooks. We have perfected (we’d like to think so) the recipes we love and put them on here so that you too can gather with the ones you love and share a meal with one another, and I hope it makes your hearts happy, too.

—The happy chef