Welcome to Homemade Gourmet®!
Welcome to my first posting in our brand new Homemade Gourmet® blog!
We’ve called it Around the Kitchen Table because so many good things happen around kitchen tables, all across America. Besides a place for sharing great home-cooked meals, it’s usually the place where most families also share their hopes, dreams, and even their deepest disappointments. There’s just something about breaking bread together that opens up our hearts to one another. Kitchen tables are often where new beginnings are “hatched” as well.
Our old family table is no exception. This table not only reflects the history of my family, but the history of our family business, Homemade Gourmet®. Just like this old table, our company started to fill a simple need in our family’s life. This time it was a need most people are familiar with … a way to make that monthly income stretch just a little bit further.
I had a passion for cooking and helping families find their way back to the dinner table, so God moved me to begin making mixes using old family recipes and selling them! Our family gathered around this hand-tiled table and scooped herbs, spices, sugar and flour into plastic bags to allow others the ability to create the fast and delicious meals we had grown up with.
From our smallest child of two, scooping up cups of dried beans to put into a bag, to my four-year-old who could use his newly found powers of counting to ten to keep us on track with our inventory, to our seven- and nine-year-olds keeping pace with mom and dad in the remaining tasks, our family business began … and it was a hit! Who knew work could be so fun?
Before we knew it other families were joining us in our mission to Bring Families Back to the Dinner Table. Eventually this success meant we had to move outside the four walls of our kitchen, but the table came with us!
It became the centerpiece of our business…moving with us every time we expanded. Its evolution is remarkable: it went from a garage sale cast off, to the family dinner table, to the original ‘manufacturing’ table, to where it now resides as the company’s ‘family’ table. Now it finds its place as the inspiration for my blog Around the Kitchen Table!
From this space, I will share with you many of the meals our family loves, tips and ideas for getting dinner on the table fast (without fast food) and treasures found around our table through our kitchen time spent together. Along the way I will learn from you too as you share your ideas and experiences and, together, we will influence a positive generational change!
I know, without a doubt, that family time at the table has more power than any government funded program, any multi-million dollar initiative, or any other activity we can plug our children into. Those precious few minutes of conversation around the table can lead to better choices made by children when they are away from the home.
This is how we influence generational change around the dinner table! So whether yours is a table for two, four, six or more, there is value in gathering around the kitchen table and spending time together. So pull up a chair and join us! I can’t wait to hear your point of view.
