Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Paleo Mama

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we travel to Western North Carolina to tour the kitchen of Jacqueline Ritz, author of the blog  The Paleo Mama.

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: The Paleo Mama

Name: Jackie Ritz
Blog:  The Paleo Mama
Location: Western North Carolina
Size of Kitchen: Very small.

Things You Love About Your Kitchen: I love my view from the sink. I can see our back pasture and love watching the goats and chickens outside.

Things You Would Change: It’s very small. The oven is tiny, and so is the stove. However, I can’t complain. I’m very blessed to have it.

Favorite Tools & Gadgets: I love my crockpot. I cook bone stock in it all week long because we buy whole chickens and I use the bones to make stock. I also love my spice corner with all the yummy organic spices that I gradually bought as I converted over to organic.

Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: The preparation is what is the most difficult for me. Nothing happens fast–there is a lot of thought and prep involved. We also buy mostly local produce so we plan our meals around what’s in season.

Current Family Favorite Meal: Anything seafood! My family, including my 4 and 2 year old can gobble down seafood. We only have it in our budget to eat seafood twice a week but it’s always a treat! My kids love pink fish (salmon), shrimp, and calamari. We steamed mussels last week and I wasn’t sure how they would like them, but they inhaled them! They have a real taste for seafood and I’m so proud of that. I’ve always had it on our menu and they started eating it as babies so they have developed quite a taste for it.

Favorite Cookbooks: I’m really loving  Well Fed 2: More Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat. It’s my favorite at the moment. Some other favorites are: [easyazon-link asin=”1936608863″ locale=”us”]Make it Paleo: Over 200 Grain Free Recipes For Any Occasion[/easyazon-link], [easyazon-link asin=”1936608235″ locale=”us”]Beyond Bacon: Paleo Recipes that Respect the Whole Hog[/easyazon-link], and [easyazon-link asin=”1936608936″ locale=”us”]Paleo Comfort Foods: Homestyle Cooking for a Gluten-Free Kitchen[/easyazon-link].

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.