Real Food Kitchen Tour: Love and Wild Honey

Ann Marie Michaels -

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week, we travel to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to tour the kitchen of Sheila Applegate, author of the blog, Love and Wild Honey

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: Love and Wild Honey

Blog Name: Love & Wild Honey
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Size of Kitchen: 10 x 14 or so
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: I don’t know how I lucked out with this rental.  The kitchen is so open and light.  I love that the kitchen layout is a U-shape so I can skirt back and forth easily when I forget items. A total blessing.  My windows look out onto my landlord’s house which is always brimming with gorgeous seasonal flowers.  I must say though that where I scored was with the pantry.  The built in pantry has loads of space and unique details that make me feel as though I am working in an old farmhouse. It is truly an urban farmsteader’s dream.
Things You Would Change: I wish I had someone to wash my real food dishes. 😉
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: The Instapot, my new 5-in-1.  I use it for pressure cooking, rice cooking and slow and steady cooking. Until I bought this, making stock was a veritable pain and beans (though “cathartic” in their slow-cooking vibe) had me strapped to the stove all day.  Two hours of hands off time and stock is done and gelled like magic.  Beans are now simple to pull off and freeze even on a weeknight.  Sigh.  If it has not saved my life it certainly gave me some peace of mind.  I also have great affection for my silicone spatula, microplane and wide-mouth funnel as well.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: Time.  But what doesn’t require time?  What better to spend it than cooking bountiful meals!
Current Family Favorite Meal: Well, my day to day family is just Simba & I.  I enjoy sharing my Lemony Chicken Rice Soup with him as he goes bonkers for chicken.  When I cook for family & friends, my favorite is Bolognese sauce with cavatelli and buttery garlic bread.  This has yet to appear on my blog but it pleases all crowds and harkens back to my Italian roots.
Favorite Cookbooks: [easyazon-link asin=”160358286X” locale=”us”]The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from around the World[/easyazon-link] is a real food classic.  Right now I am intoxicated by the pictures in Jerusalem and [easyazon-link asin=”061880692X” locale=”us”]The Gourmet Cookbook: More than 1000 recipes[/easyazon-link] is my default classic.

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 cheeseslave 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.

Photo credit: A warm welcome Project365(3) Day 10 by Keith Williamson, on Flickr