Blossom & Root

In our house, celebration tastes like cheesecake. It’s the dessert I bake for birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones. Over the years, it’s become our family tradition—one that feels both grounding and joyful. This week, Chris celebrated five years of sobriety . That’s a milestone worth the richest, most decadent dessert I could dream up. When I asked what he wanted, his request came without hesitation: peanut butter cheesecake with a sourdough discard brownie crust. Cheesecake takes patience. From the slow baking to the long chill, it’s a dessert that insists on being intentional. And maybe that’s why it’s the dessert I return to again and again when we have something big to mark. Each cheesecake carries a story, a memory, a reason to pause. This one, especially, will always remind me of strength, resilience, and the beauty of traditions you build yourself. 🍫 The Brownie Crust This cheesecake starts with my sourdough discard brownies—rich, fudgy, and deeply chocolatey. On...

🌱 When the Garden Doesn’t Go as Planned Not every season in the garden is picture-perfect. Sometimes, despite your best intentions, things just don’t work out. The weather shifts, timing gets away from you, or plants simply refuse to cooperate. This summer, my garden started later than I wanted. I leaned on hardware store starts instead of growing from seed, hoping to get a quick jump on the season. But what I ended up with was a lot of green leaves and almost no flowers — no vegetables, no harvest. Just frustration. It’s easy to feel defeated when your plants don’t thrive, but gardening is as much about adapting as it is about planting. Instead of giving up, I’ve decided to pivot. I’m doing one last push: starting a few summer crops from seed, even though the calendar says I’m late. Living in an area with a long growing season gives me a little wiggle room, and I’m holding onto hope that I can coax a small harvest out of the soil before the season ends. Gardening teaches resilien...

🌿 Homesteading as Heritage: Building a Life of My Own This morning after finishing my chores, I sat down and watched a reel a friend had shared. It was of Mexican dancers moving gracefully in front of a beautiful cathedral. While I recognized the beauty of what I was seeing, what I felt inside was sadness. Those dancers had a strong heritage to hold onto — something alive, communal, passed down and celebrated together. I’ve often wished for that. Being raised in a mixed-race family where little importance was placed on either culture, I’ve felt the absence of inherited traditions. And I know my parents carried that same distance from their own upbringing. I can understand the history, the reasons why, but I still wish the choices had been different. For a long time, that left me with the question: what do I belong to? Where do I root myself? The identity I lean into most right now is homesteader. And strangely, it feels like a calling. Being a beginner at it makes the connection f...

Finding Grace in the Kitchen on Low-Energy Days Being newly introduced to the neurodivergent world, I’ve been slowly learning how to build rhythms that actually work for me. Between cooking meals, planning a garden, managing the household, and helping out on the ranch—sometimes while dealing with a sick chicken, cat, or other animal—energy isn’t always a guarantee. Some days I can cook a full meal from scratch. Other days, it’s heat-and-go, or maybe nothing at all. And that’s okay. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is this: it’s okay to have low-energy days, guilt-free. Rest is part of self-care, even if it means dinner isn’t perfect. Instead of pushing through exhaustion, I’ve started creating systems that support me when my executive function is running low. Having a few practical tricks in your back pocket makes all the difference. Here are two that have been especially helpful for me: 📅 Hack #1: Micro-Planning with My Calendar I rely on my phone calendar for more ...

  Rooted in the Life I’m Growing For me, rooted living is about finding joy in the small, ordinary tasks that stitch my days together. Every morning begins the same way. Around 5 a.m., I wake to the sound of my roosters calling out the day. Daisy, our ranch dog, usually makes her rounds — stopping by the bedroom window to bark once before trotting off like she’s simply clocking in for work. I feed the cats their dry food, then tend to the chickens and check on the garden. Once the animals are cared for, I come back inside and pick up the threads from the night before — cups, plates, socks, shoes, whatever my husband or I left behind when we drifted to bed. I start a load of dishes, sweep the floor, and give the house a quiet morning reset. The Kitchen and the Garden: Two Sides of the Same Root Being both a chef and a gardener means the two roles constantly feed each other. Chefs create art using the best ingredients they can find — and any chef worth their salt will tell you that g...