Real Food Kitchen Tour: Chicken Scratches

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Jeanmarie Todd, author of the Chicken Scratches blog.

What’s a Real Foodie?

A “real foodie” is someone who cooks “traditional” food. We cook stuff from scratch using real ingredients, like raw milk, grass-fed beef, eggs from chickens that run around outdoors, whole grains, sourdough and yogurt starters, mineral-rich sea salt, and natural sweeteners like honey and real maple syrup.

We don’t use modern foods that are either fake, super-refined, or denatured. This includes modern vegetable oils like Crisco and margarine, soy milk, meat from factory farms, pasteurized milk from cows eating corn and soybeans, refined white flour, factory-made sweeteners like HFCS or even refined white sugar, or commercial yeast.

We believe in eating wholesome, nutrient-dense foods that come from nature. So we shop at farmer’s markets or buy direct from the farmer, or we grow food in our own backyards.

This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Chicken Scratches

This week we’re featuring Jeanmarie Todd, author of the Chicken Scratches blog. Jeanmarie lives with her husband and chickens in northern California.

Jeanmarie wanted to be a part of the Real Food Kitchen Tour because she wanted to represent those of us who don’t have kitchens that are neat as a pin. I love Jeanmarie for keeping it real!

Blog Name: Chicken Scratches
Blog Author: Jeanmarie Todd
How Long Blogging: Two years, but not many posts to show for it!
Location: Fort Bragg, California
House or Apartment: Farmhouse
Size of Kitchen: L-shaped, probably 12′ x 12′ to 14′ x 14′
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: Not much, except the location. I love our farm! Also, it’s sunny and fairly roomy, holding a hodgepodge of furniture from two households.
Things You Would Change: Let’s see, new stainless steel appliances, new counters and more counter space, deep drawers for pots and pans (I would gladly give up the nonfunctioning dishwasher for that), new floor, and a closet.
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: My VitaMix blender; David’s stand mixer (I never had one before); my Sharp convection/microwave, still going strong after 25 + years (I only use the microwave function to disinfect sponges); my collection of strainers and funnels, especially my canning funnel, which I use daily. I also love David’s Le Creuset casseroles and heavy-duty All Clad pots and pans. He also has the most enormous stock pot. Together we have two crock pots and use them both. Having a chest freezer is a blessing as well.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: Time to cook and clean up, and to read all my cookbooks!
Current Family Favorite Meal: Frozen pork roast stuck into a 250 degree oven for a couple of hours, comes out delicious. A trick we learned from a local beef rancher; works for pork as well. Plus broccoli covered liberally with homemade Hollandaise.
Favorite Cookbooks: I refer a lot to Nourishing Traditions; Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes; Full Moon Feast by our friend Jessica Prentice; various paleo/primal cookbooks, and The Joy of Cooking. I get a lot of recipes from CHEESESLAVE,  >Kelly the Kitchen Kop,  The Nourished Kitchen , and other  Real Food Media  bloggers.

Here are some photos of Jeanmarie’s kitchen (with her comments in italics):

I’ll get no awards for cleanliness in general, but I am a stickler for clean dishes and clean water bowls for the animals.

I’ve been craving kombucha lately. I need to start a new batch.

Looks like my fridge! We WAPFers never have enough room in the fridge.

My extensive cookbook collection provides lots of inspiration, when I take the time to actually use a cookbook. I do refer to them often, but I don’t necessarily follow recipes exactly.

Oh, yum! That looks delicious!

Of course, no tour of my kitchen would be complete without introducing the chickens who provide our eggs. Here they stopped by to check out the kitchen for themselves, or perhaps they were just hoping for a treat.

They are so cute!

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

Real Food Kitchen Tour: Pam Pam Montazeri
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Cracking an Egg with One Hand
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Yolks, Kefir & Gristle
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Okparaeke Family
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Kid
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Artistta
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Nourished & Nurtured
Real Food Kitchen Tour: May All Seasons Be Sweet to Thee
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Horting Family
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Hybrid Rasta Mama
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Granola Mom 4 God
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food Devotee
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food Forager
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Leftover Queen
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Health Home & Happiness

Let Us Tour Your Kitchen

Are you a real foodie? Do you have a kitchen that you’d like to see featured on CHEESESLAVE?

Please email me at annmarie AT realfoodmedia dot com. Either send me a link to a Flickr set or email me your photos (minimum of 5, but more is better). Note: Please send me LARGE photos. Minimum 610 width. If they’re too small, I can’t use them.

Oh, and please send the answers to the above questions (at the very top of this post).

As much as I’d love to include all the photos I receive, I can’t guarantee that I will use your photos in the series. I’m looking for creative, good quality photos.

Some ideas for photos:

• Show us what’s in your fridge or what’s fermenting on your counter
• Take some snaps of some of your favorite kitchen gadgets, or show us how you organize your spices
• Got backyard chickens? Send some pics!
• How about a lovely herb garden?
• Kids or pets are always cute!
• Try to include at least one photo of yourself, ideally in your kitchen

And no, you don’t have to have a blog to be included in the tour.