Real Food Kitchen Tour: Patricia Maxwell

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week, we travel to Kansas City, Missouri to tour the kitchen of Patricia Maxwell.

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: Patricia Maxwell

Blog Name: I don’t have a blog!  Occasionally I write blog posts in my mind, but I don’t think that counts.
House or Apartment: House. We have been here for 18 years.  The house was built in 1965 and not much has changed in the kitchen since then.
Size of Kitchen: 195 square feet
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: The size.  It’s big enough so that I can cook without feeling cramped even if other people are in the room.  Our old kitchen was more like a hallway with appliances along the walls.  I’m glad that we have room for a kitchen table.  And I really appreciate the laminate floor my husband installed to replace the old linoleum.
Things You Would Change: I always joke that my kitchen was designed by a man who didn’t cook.  He never heard of the kitchen work triangle, apparently.  The stove and the sink are on opposite sides of the room, 13 feet apart.  So I’d like to change the layout to be cooking-friendly.  Next would be to replace the counter tops.  A brick counter top is not the best surface for food prep.
Favorite Tools & Gadgets:   My crockpots: I have one of each: small, medium and large.  They get a lot of use.  At Thanksgiving all three are going at once.  I recently bought a 10-cup Hamilton Beach food processor, which I now love.  My college roommate taught me how to make bread by hand.  She also taught me how to make yogurt without a machine (using a Dutch oven wrapped in quilts!). Since then I’ve always enjoyed the process of slicing and mixing by hand.  For years I had no interest in food processors. Trying to make sauerkraut by hand changed my mind!  My Hamilton Beach blender is popular and we have really gotten a lot of use from our Cuisinart Frozen Yogurt, Ice Cream and Sorbet maker. We keep the freezer bowl in the freezer all the time.  You never know when you will need ice cream on the spot!
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: Convincing my family that offal isn’t awful! (I know; feel free to groan.) I’ve always tried to cook meals that are healthy.  Twenty years ago I became convinced that liver couldn’t possibly be good for you, so I stopped making fried chicken livers for dinner.  We also started removing the skin from chicken, buying boneless meat and doing other boring things.  When I began making changes to include traditional cooking a few years ago, it was met with mixed feelings.  Everyone was glad to see me embrace bacon, but most of them simply don’t want to give liver a chance. The youngest child at home is fifteen, so sitting in the kitchen saying, “Yum, this liver is SO good!” doesn’t work like it might have ten or twelve years ago.
Current Family Favorite Meal: Chocolate Chili from Well Fed; also popular: Bleu cheese burgers; bacon-wrapped meatloaf; various types of soups and quiche.
Favorite Cookbooks: [easyazon-link asin=”061557226X” locale=”us”]Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat[/easyazon-link], [easyazon-link asin=”0967089735″ locale=”us”]Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats[/easyazon-link], and a mid-70’s version of Joy of Cooking, which has recipes for “variety meats” as kidney, liver, etc. were called back then. Even though it isn’t considered a traditional real food cookbook, I enjoy reading America’s Best Recipes.  I like the way they explain the science behind cooking, which helps me create my own recipes.

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.