Real Food Kitchen Tour: Our Heritage of Health

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week, we travel to Boston, Massachusetts to tour the kitchen of Lori Elliott, author of the blog, Our Heritage of Health.

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: Our Heritage of Health

Blog Name: Our Heritage of Health
Blog Author: Lori Elliott
Location: Boston, MA
How Long Blogging: 1 1/2 years
House or Apartment: House
Size of Kitchen: 12 1/2 ft. x 10 ft.

Things You Love About Your Kitchen: I really like the unique shape of the cabinets and shelves. My grandfather built the house himself in the 1950s so the kitchen has a homemade, vintage feel to it. I also love the big, 19th century pantry cupboard I found at an antiques flea market. It’s great for storage, and it gives the kitchen some character.
Things You Would Change: The kitchen is a bit on the small side, so having a little more space would be nice, especially when my dog Daisy plants herself in the middle of the floor to catch any food that falls! I also wish there was more natural lighting in there. The only window in the kitchen is on the shady side of the house, so it’s really hard to get good lighting to take photos for blog posts.
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: I don’t use very many modern kitchen gadgets, and my favorite tools are all ones I found at antique stores. I use my old wooden mortar and pestle for grinding herbs and spices, and I use an antique kitchen scale for weighing meat when I want to separate bulk purchases into smaller portions. My antique wood-handled vegetable peeler works better than any modern peeler I’ve tried, and my favorite and most-used tool is my little antique cast iron pan. It’s the perfect size for heating up leftovers on the stove.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: My biggest challenge is probably time management and planning ahead. If I want to make sourdough bread or soak flour in buttermilk for a cake, I have to remember the night before to prepare the dough or batter. It also takes longer to shop for food now that I don’t get everything at the regular grocery store. I get my pastured eggs from one farm, my veggies from another, and my meat from another, so it takes a bit more time to drive around to source those different real food ingredients.
Current Family Favorite Meal: I love to eat seasonally, so now that autumn has arrived, my current favorite meal is pastured ham with carrots, onions, sweet potatoes, apples, and pears all simmered in a sauce of butter and apple cider and seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, sage, thyme, cinnamon, and cloves. It’s absolutely delicious!
Favorite Cookbooks: Except for [easyazon-link asin=”0967089735″ locale=”us”]Nourishing Traditions[/easyazon-link], of course, my favorite cookbooks are all 19th century books and recipe pamphlets that I’ve collected over the years, including Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Receipt Book, The Young Housekeeper’s Friend, and The Domestic Cookery and Family Receipt Book. These cookbooks were written in a time before the invention of pesticides, artificial additives, and hydrogenated oils, etc. and just about every recipe in them is already a real food recipe

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

Please Select…Real Food Kitchen Tour: House.Barn.Farm.Real Food Kitchen Tour: Sweet PlantainsReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Sprouting SeedReal Food Kitchen Tour: Real Fit MamaReal Food Kitchen Tour: Through My Kitchen WindowReal Food Kitchen Tour: Elevated EatsReal Food Kitchen Tour: 20 Something Allergies & Counting…DownReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Simple Paleo LifeReal Food Kitchen Tour: Healy Real Food VegetarianReal Food Kitchen Tour: Granny’s Vital VittlesReal Food Kitchen Tour: Food Loves WritingReal Food Kitchen Tour: Kaayla’s KitchenReal Food Kitchen Tour: Polivka FamilyReal Food Kitchen Tour: Girl Meets NourishmentReal Food Kitchen Tour: Oh Lardy!Real Food Kitchen Tour: Simplistic WholisticReal Food Kitchen Tour: Honest To Goodness LivingReal Food Kitchen Tour: Cultured PalateReal Food Kitchen Tour: A Crafty GourmetReal Food Kitchen Tour: Living Low Carb One Day At A TimeReal Food Kitchen Tour: Family2TableReal Food Kitchen Tour: Artist Ruth CreativeReal Food Kitchen Tour: Food With Kid AppealReal Food Kitchen Tour: And Here We AreReal Food Kitchen Tour: Whole Green LoveReal Food Kitchen Tour: Homemade MommyReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Pantry BookReal Food Kitchen Tour: McKenzie McCartyReal Food Kitchen Tour: Dimes2VinesReal Food Kitchen Tour: GutsyReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Wannabe HomesteaderReal Food Kitchen Tour: Nourishing Our ChildrenReal Food Kitchen Tour: Life Is A MelodyReal Food Kitchen Tour: Too Many Jars in My Kitchen!Real Food Kitchen Tour: Natural Health at HomeReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Promise Land FarmReal Food Kitchen Tour: Mama and Baby LoveReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Healthy Habit CoachReal Food Kitchen Tour: Life From ScratchReal Food Kitchen Tour: Our Nourishing RootsReal Food Kitchen Tour: Jody BrantleyReal Food Kitchen Tour: Eating My VegetablesReal Food Kitchen Tour: Well Fed HomesteadReal Food Kitchen Tour: Farm Food BlogReal Food Kitchen Tour: Unmistakably FoodReal Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic HealthReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Prairie HomesteadReal Food Kitchen Tour: Bubbling Brook FarmReal Food Kitchen Tour: Taste is TrumpReal Food Kitchen Tour: CHEESESLAVEReal Food Kitchen Tour: GAPS Diet KitchenReal Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic MomReal Food Kitchen Tour: Radically Natural LivingReal Food Kitchen Tour: Amanda BrownReal Food Kitchen Tour: Pamela MontazeriReal Food Kitchen Tour: Cracking an Egg with One HandReal Food Kitchen Tour: Yolks, Kefir & GristleReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Okparaeke FamilyReal Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic KidReal Food Kitchen Tour: ArtisttaReal Food Kitchen Tour: Nourished & NurturedReal Food Kitchen Tour: May All Seasons Be Sweet to TheeReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Horting FamilyReal Food Kitchen Tour: Hybrid Rasta MamaReal Food Kitchen Tour: Granola Mom 4 GodReal Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food DevoteeReal Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food ForagerReal Food Kitchen Tour: The Leftover QueenReal 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 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