welcome to my own little mess!
You're here! That really makes me quite happy because, like all fresh endeavors, this one feels a bit wobbly and new on its feet. So I'm quite glad you've dropped by. You are so very welcome here!
And just what exactly is "here," you might ask? Well, "here" is a place of community. I've realized in the past several years that so many of my most meaningful, joyful, and long-lived memories have all taken place around food - whether baking, eating, preparing it in community, or simply being together around the table. Making homemade meals and desserts was a huge part of my childhood and became a point of shared pride and bonding with all my family. It is something my three sisters and I have kept up as we've become adults and as some have had children of their own.
It's never really a family gathering until we're all congregated in the kitchen and prepping various things, the air filled with crescendoing aromas and echoing with laughter and conversation. These are the happiest times, the warmest times.
And through all these years, we've held onto these same recipes, this same culinary liturgy of the seasons. When other areas of our lives have been less than steady, when our family (like all families) had its ups and downs, these traditions and these recipes have stayed constant. We return over and over to that community of the table. Here we are bound together by the years of shared tradition, by a language that we speak from childhood.
Here around the communal table live the cakes mom made for all our birthdays - the clown cakes, the pig cakes, the elephants, and the carousels. Here is the Christmas brunch, the table overflowing with Swedish tea ring, warm cinnamon rolls, pecan rolls, and egg souffles. Here are our birthday dinner favorites, the pork Sylvie, the angel food cake, homemade macaroni, and the full arsenal of pies. We know them all like dear friends.
It is to this table that I invite you. Come, join us for a meal! Join us here at our table, be found in the laughter and the community. That is what I want to do here in this space. I want to invite you to share in these traditions, to share a meal with us.
So welcome - to this blog, and to my table. I am so very glad you've come.
- Whitney
Curious about the title, author, and other background? Read more about My Own Little Mess here!
