Real Food Kitchen Tour: May All Seasons Be Sweet To Thee

Ann Marie Michaels -

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Dawn Rigoni, from May All Seasons Be Sweet To Thee.

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:  May All Seasons Be Sweet To Thee

This week I’m featuring Dawn Rigoni of the May All Seasons Be Sweet To Thee blog. She’s extremely pregnant at the moment — about to pop! (Dawn, I’m wishing you the easiest, loveliest, most blessed birth.)

Dawn writes:

“Our baby boy Rafael is due September 18th. I’m already so big, it’s hard to believe this belly will expand even more. I read that you are pursuing a fertility diet. That’s great! We lost our first baby to miscarriage back in 2009 and I feel positive that bone broth, raw milk, butter, coconut oil, etc., helped my body to recover and conceive again.”

Dawn is a talented photographer and artist who grew up in Northern California and is now living in Austria with her beloved.  She named her blog after Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem ‘Frost at Midnight,’ whose final lines read:

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

Dawn writes: “I chose this title not only because I find it is a beautiful thing to wish for someone, but because it is what I strive every day to instill within myself: a wonder and curiosity for the magic and beauty of nature; an appreciation and adoration for every kind of weather, and every season.”

Clearly she does that. Just looking at the photographs of her kitchen, I think you’ll agree that there is plenty of wonder, magic, and adoration in Dawn’s corner of the world.

Blog Name: May All Seasons Be Sweet To Thee
Blog Author: Dawn Rigoni
How Long Blogging: Since January 2009
Location: Austria, Europe
House or Apartment: Apartment
Size of Kitchen: No idea!
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: Everything here and everything in it’s place. I love how practical it is, and that it is just big enough so that my husband and I can cook together. In our first apartment, we couldn’t afford a kitchen for the first two years, so this kitchen is a real dream. I took my time designing it, the most important feature for me being that there is plenty of storage space.
Things You Would Change: Some day I hope to have a walk-in pantry connected to my kitchen.
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: Our big Liebherr refrigerator. I also really appreciate sharp knives.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: I love baking cakes and cookies and do allow myself to indulge in that dream once in a while, especially during the Christmas holidays.
Current Family Favorite Meal: We love breakfast. Eggs, bacon, oatmeal with raw milk and butter, fresh organic fruits. And a tablespoon of coconut oil.
Favorite Cookbooks: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver (Jamie cooks real food so effortlessly and with so much gusto and enthusiasm), Autumn by Susan Branch (such a charming book with fall-inspired recipes), The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker (real pioneer recipes!)

Here are some photos of Dawn’s kitchen:

Are you inspired by this kitchen? I am! It’s absolutely gorgeous.

The brown glass bottle is so elegant. Not to mention Dawn’s jam jar and straw.

I am not one to hide my appliances away in a cupboard or pantry. Especially the beautiful ones like my KitchenAid stand mixer. I love how artfully Dawn has arranged her appliances. In a busy, working kitchen, there’s no time to put things away — better just to make it look lovely.

Love the drawers!

I’ve given up coffee but I do still love a cup of organic decaf. I would make myself a decaffeinated espresso every day if I had this machine… I may have to get one.

Dawn, you are so smart to have all of this soup stored. When Rafael comes, you will be all set!

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

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.