Settling Back into Sundays
Starting a "tiny" farm, embracing grandma chic and everything in between.
Well, it’s been a while! My short hiatus from writing accidentally turned into twelve months. It’s been so long since we last caught up, I’m not exactly sure where to begin! The short version of the story is that we moved from Hawaii to North Carolina, bought a fixer upper and started a “tiny” farm on just under an acre. A few chickens quickly turned into twenty-two, followed by ten ducks and four beehives.
As you can imagine, pretending to be Bob the Builder and an endless stream of farm chores has kept me quite busy. Despite the endless chaos, I’ve missed sharing recipes with you all so much!
For some much needed context, our beautiful little house was previously owned by a sweet elderly lady. According to her children, she was wonderfully set in her ways and preferred to keep everything just as it was. Much to their (very vocal) dismay, this included the avocado green walls that had graced the master bedroom since 1987. I think she knew that grandma chic would inevitably make a comeback to the mainstream, in which case the original French windows and walnut trim needed to remain in tact!
You might be wondering how I know all these little anecdotes. The full story is too lovely to be condensed into a few short sentences but as it turns out, her daughter lives right across the street. It feels a bit like living next to your cool aunt and uncle, they’re truly the most wonderful people. We’ve even made it onto their Christmas cookie list! And the cookies? They are perfect in every sense of the word.
Unfortunately, the kitchen was the only room in our entire house that had been sacrificed to the millennial grey wave of the 2010s. The day we got the keys, I started the monumental task of attempting to restore the painted solid wood cabinets. After weeks of trying literally every removal method I could find on the internet, I admitted defeat and had to figure out a new plan before I completely lost my shit.
I decided to look at cozy cottage kitchens as my main source of inspiration. Over the past year, I’ve slowly repainted the cabinets in a warm burgundy red and swapped the laminate countertops for butcher block, which my husband actually made himself. While not a single room in our entire house is truly finished, I’ve really come to appreciate the saying, ‘home wasn’t built in a day’.
Even though the kitchen is still considered a construction site, I’ve been experimenting with new recipes like normal. Don’t worry, I’ve been writing them all down especially for you! Aside from sharing my recipes once again, I might also write about our many “tiny” farm projects. We might actually be adopting two baby goats very soon, so that will be interesting to say the least!
Anyway, I promised myself that I wouldn’t yap for too long but if you’re even just slightly curious, I’d absolutely love for you to stick around for this new era of Biscotti Sundays!
Happy holidays,
Georgia