My friend Patrice Lanzner-Brown was right. One of the ways I love my family and really everyone, is to feed them food I have prepared.

I have been fussing at this entity we call hindsight lately, lol. (I am admittedly nutty in that way.) Looking back, I have no idea why I am just now, at 42 realizing that I have a passion for cooking and baking. I am one who takes great pleasure in the smallest of things. Feeding people good wholesome food, prepared with love, makes me downright giddy and teary eyed.

Right now as I type this, my heart is full. I love experimenting in the kitchen and am willing to try things I’ve never heard of (only to find out later it is a thing with a name). I enjoy learning from the results. We have a month old sourdough starter. Instead of looking up sourdough recipes, we decided to experiment and make up our own (again) and make a sourdough banana bread loaf. It is almost done and looks fantastic. I also got out a bag of apples I bought yesterday and peeled, cored and cut them to make a fermented apple sauce that will be ready in a few days. In the meantime, there’s a pint of fermented apple sauce for my family to enjoy and benefit from.

I also started the process of making more cultured butter for my family. My heart swelled with pride and joy to see my oldest take out some sourdough waffles we made an froze a few weeks ago. She gave them to my 2 sons, who happily gobbled them up with some maple syrup (which reminds me that we need to make more pancake syrup). It’s like a scene off some farm somewhere.

For me, food has to be prepared with real ingredients. This means I don’t do too much processed food. I enjoy making things from scratch that some never consider making. I am also big on making delicious fermented foods for optimal gut health. It pleases me to no end to bake a cake a bread, make fruit leather (like fruit roll ups) and more and have it be from fully soured dough for optimal digestion or fermented fruits and vegetables and see it all devoured happily.

I think I will eventually teach some of this to people around me. I tend to live in a bubble and think everyone knows all these things but I am finding more and more that this is not true. People have no idea that the oatmeal they are eating, thinking they are eating healthily, if not pre soaked, is actually not doing their body as much good as they presume.

I loved setting the record straight when my dear sister, upon seeing pictures of foods I prepared, assumed I had time on my hands that I surely don’t. She was shocked to learn how little actual laboring time I spent on the foods she saw pictured on my Facebook page. Anyone can prepare foods in a healthy manner and reap the benefits.

Anyway, I’ll stop here and just say I am happy to have finally realized how much I love preparing good, healthy food for others. I want to teach my children while young how to develop healthy eating habits. I hope they carry it with them and teach their children as well. And, I hope you’re eating well too.