Hi! I’m Stacy Lyn Harris.

I love life and I like to make every minute of it count. I like to live big and that is what I get to do every day! I’m a writer, gardener, photographer, and lawyer… but I’m also a wife and mother of 7 children which carries with it some pretty heavy cooking duties. Yes, I had all 7 children. I remember each of their births quite well.

If you can’t tell by my accent, I’m from LA, that is Lower Alabama.  I have lived in Alabama my entire life couldn’t be more proud. The South is where I learned to cook. My Southern grandmother taught me how to “live sustainable” without even knowing what the word “sustainable” meant. Her sustainable lifestyle was just that, a way of living. I made it my ambition to emulate her lifestyle. It seemed so natural, so simple, so full, and… wonderfully healthy. She taught me how to garden, how to cook what we brought in and then how to “put up” what excess we had, but more importantly she taught me how to give. She would take the less fortunate, which is saying a lot, the overflow of her bounty.  She certainly didn’t waste anything. It either went into a meal, was composted, or re-used in another way. Again, just a lifestyle.

Scott, my husband, is a real outdoorsman and has always wanted to “live off the land.” He hunted for our meat, fished for our fish. I wasn’t crazy about the meat at first, but once I studied ancient recipes that our ancestors used before us, I found that when cooking the different cuts of meat correctly that the “wild” meats were much more tasty than those provided by the grocery store. It is certainly in vogue to use organic meats and order wild meats today for this very reason.

Both Scott and I felt that it was important to get back to basics in life. Most people’s lives were incredibly busy..so busy that parents weren’t seeing their kids but about 15 minutes a day, families weren’t eating dinner around the table together, and fast food was replacing what I call “real” food. We didn’t want to raise our family like that. It was time to get back to common sense living.  I decided to trade time in the office and courtroom for time with my family creating gardens of all kinds, keeping chickens and bees, and cooking delicious simple and healthy meals from our harvest.

Not long ago in our history, most people had a kitchen garden full of vegetables, herbs, a few fruit trees, and chickens that produced great eggs. They may have gone to the local butcher for their meat and the local store for milk, flour, and sugar, but for the most part they were living from their bounty. There is no denying that homegrown slow food is much tastier than that which is rushed to grow, picked unripe, and shipped all the way across the country or continent. I am a believer that old recipes are tried and true, simple food is better, and great ingredients make great meals.

One of the results of living this simple lifestyle is that it seems to spur creativity and beauty in every area of our lives. Each year brings new challenges and new creative projects such as this year’s building a smokehouse project. Our gardens get more gorgeous inspiring new, more gorgeous delicious recipes and we experiment with different ways of cooking them. There is just something about being that close to nature..and to each other. I would love to share with you what I have learned along the way and hopefully show you a few things that spark creativity in you for a healthier, tastier, and more beautiful life.

Connect with me on social media!!! I would love to be a part of your life.

I am on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and Instagram.

 

 

 

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