Wildflowers and Fresh Food

03/06/2025

👩🏻‍🌾Finding myself in a garden full of hollyhocks, sweet snap peas and juicy earthworms, no wonder they say gardening is good for the soul!

All of this fresh air, some weeding, maybe a well earned nap and then working with Pepper 🐶to stay out of the garden🤭 often fills our day!

Pepper 🐶loves the fresh air and freedom of the sheep pastures and visiting the orchards and so do I, what fun to see pasture rotations 🐑and peaches, pears and blueberries 🫐🫐🫐coming into season. 😃

I can’t wait to fill our plates (and yours) with these beautiful ingredients!

03/06/2025

Some people call me lucky, others say I’m the hardest working person they know…I don’t really feel lucky or all that hard working, I just do what I love and I’m happy to do it - a lot!

I’m a firm believer that we were all born with something to do, our own personal mission, and when we find it our life doesn’t feel like work. We become happy to put in the hours because when we are doing what we love we lose all track of time. We are in our flow, as they say.

Nurturing people through food, whether it’s a cooking class, private chef event or a retreat uses my nursing roots, combined with my mothering skills (my favorite job in life) and my love of cooking and sensory experience. 👩🏻‍🌾I love the aromas, the feel of the earth, admiring the ingredients and the warmth of the sun. ☀️I love people and exchanging smiles and encouragement. Working with people in the food environment, reminding them of food sources - 🥕farms and gardens, reminding them of the incredible value of sitting down to a shared meal, a simple meal full of color and flavor. This is my element. In my classes, we do this. We talk about where the food came from, how to simply prepare it and then we sit down together and enjoy it. I can’t think of a better way to learn, meet new people and recenter ourselves.

If you like the sounds of this, come join us in June for new classes at :
June 7 Picnic class
June 10 Healthy cooking class
June 17 Healthy cooking class
June 20 Private Chef Event 👩‍🍳
June 28 Brunch class
Link in bio, please preregister.

If you are part of my Fairhope following, yes! We will soon be offering these classes there. Thank you for your requests, I hear you!

30/05/2025

The Picnic Class🧺
June 7th at Sweet Seasons Farm

We are all looking for experiences that make memories and this class is sure to do just that! Grab a basket or a blanket, come solo or with friends, family or loved ones.

We will make a perfect picnic together… a prosciutto wrapped chicken, beet and walnut spread, fruit and cheese, local sourdough, ancient grain salad and a sweet treat. These are recipes you can use all week, rain or shine but work especially well for a picnic (or work lunch). We will make our recipes together, pack them up and head outside to enjoy an afternoon under the trees with pastures of sheep to gaze at! Memory maker for sure!🐑

Join us June 7
1-3pm
Sweet Seasons Farm in Valley Head
Registration required at www.wildflowersandfteshfood.com link in bio

29/05/2025

https://youtu.be/c2kT9cT1xVc?si=A2Rs10Id3e717e4w
I've been making Lamb for a long time, a roasted rack of lamb is always a treat! Want some lamb, I'll get you some! Need to learn how to cook it, I'll teach you how!

Holidays, Anniversaries, special Celebrations..these call for special menus! This Roast Rack of Lamb is so perfect. A simple yet sophisticated choice, this r...

28/05/2025

The June Cooking Classes and Private Chef Event at Sweet Seasons Farm Event Barn are up on the website!

Register at www.wildflowersandfreshfood.com link in bio

There are a variety of class types, dates and times of day to accommodate busy schedules. If you’d like to book a private event that suits your calendar or group better, just reach out!

See you there!

27/05/2025

👩🏻‍🌾I’m thrilled to share the exciting news that I’m teaming up with for Cooking Classes and Private Chef events!🥕🥕🥕

We will offer Classes and Private Chef events with garden fresh vegetables, fruits and pasture raised proteins. Locally sourced produce and products will be the mainstay and fresh, beautiful and bright will be the flavors abound.🌸

If you’d like to book a group Cooking Class or a Private Chef Event, DM me or reach out through the website www.wildflowersandfreshfood.com

A calendar of open classes and dinners will be published soon, so follow along for that as well. 🗓️

Visit to learn more about this fabulous and unique event venue! 🐑🐑🐑

26/05/2025

The party starts way before 6:30pm…

Curating the menu with the hostess prior to the event date starts ideas and flavor profiles bubbling. 🌶️

A visit to the hostesses home to pull platters the week of, to review the color schemes and discuss envisioned flow of the party is an important step to make event day run smoothly and to ensure the event is what thehostess envisioned.

In season garden grown herbs, veggies and edible flowers 🌸are tended to at the Ranch and locally sourcing items to be served is an important part of the party prep. Not just for the success of the party but because it starts my heart opening too.

There’s an Italian term called “soft hands” meaning cooking from the heart. Seasoned cooks know that the food created with the soft touch (our arms and hands are a literal extension from our heart) the food tastes different, full of love. 💗Comfort and kindness is experienced through a plate of food.
In the case of this engagement party, the food was representing the love and support, an ongoing nourishment, to the start of the new couples life together. The hosts were sending a message to the couple of their ongoing love and support. 💞

At the event, hearing folks comment to one another on how pretty, delicious and fresh the food is always makes me smile. And when they say how good they feel after eating the food, it reminds me (every time) that we are sensory creatures and our environment and what we take in from that environment really sets our tune.

Private cheffing involves working in a variety of kitchens, this cottage kitchen had a terrific Wolf induction oven but any kitchen will do and acclimating is one of the things we do best.

A relaxed hostess is the secret to any great party so we refresh platters, pick up plates, wash dishes, tidy up the leftovers and leave the kitchen as we found it. Clean up is important!

We make sure the hosts kids, the band and anyone else there to work gets a plate of food too!😋Everyone needs nourishing! We put a plate of the food, cheeses and desserts aside for the hostess and her family to enjoy after the party, so they can put their feet up and basque in the glow of a successful party!🥳

24/05/2025

💗An engagement party for Harper & Curt! Perfect weather and plenty of guests were in attendance to celebrate these special two!

Serenaded by Simone French, the night air was full of music and the table was full of wonderful flavors and conviviality.

The hosts for this party requested Southwest flavors with a Wildflowers and fresh food aesthetic, so I was ever so happy to add my usual touch of citrus, herbs and edible flowers to the beef tenderloin asada, shrimp chipotle, southwest pork tenderloins, black bean cakes over roasted corn and tajin sprinkled spring radishes, cucumbers, Cara Cara oranges and pineapple. Assorted toppings added plenty more fresh flavor with a mango salsa, tomatillo salsa, pico de gallo, lime cream, pickled red onions and queso. I added some roasted potatoes resting in a puddle of feta sauce and some veggie skewers with chimichurri.

A dessert board with bleu cheese, cheddar and triple crème Brie with rainier cherries and big bowls of fruit played a picturesque tune next to cookies by Fairhope Chocolate and stunning flowers by favorite florist Wildflowers. Server assist with high glass to help make everything run seemlessly. 😊

If this night is any indication of things to come, I’d say this union is blessed with kindness and ease. Congratulations Harper and Curt, you are surrounded by love!

18/05/2025

It’s as much fun to party prep as it is to party present!🌸Growing my own edible flowers and herbs in the garden feels party perfect! 🌸🌸🥳

11/05/2025

Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom!🌷💗🌷

They say a mother’s strength is the greatest testament to her child’s potential and this is most definitely true in our family! ☺️My mother has endured life’s greatest challenges and her style and grace has inspired multiple generations to always go after their full potential. She’s always available, sharp as a tack and the first one to ask how an event went. She sees the special traits and unique qualities in every member of her family and loves them each individually. She’s the most self effacing and funny member of the family and it’s contagious. 💗

Her lifelong dedication to health and vitality has allowed her to see the fruits of all her labor, she’s going strong in her eighties and we are so thankful to spend this Mother’s day with her. 🤗

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

09/05/2025

Ah Spring and all the feels.🌸

They played this song (Smile by Uncle Kracker) on my last day of work, a retirement from nursing I guess you’d say. I guess we never know how we are affecting people 💗 but they told me there, that they associated me with the sun, an easy smile and a cheerful disposition. Most of us are unaware of how we affect people, telling someone how much they mean to you is one of the kindest things you can do and I often listen to that song to buoy myself up.💗

I’ve gone along and grown my cooking career and still get a Birthday hello or big hug from past colleagues when I see them. It’s nice.

These days I get to express love through food. I swirl in the creativity of colors and fresh flavors, it opens my heart and allows the grace that was meant for me to flow and to connect with other people.

I spend afternoons taking walks and noticing things, the taste of a single tiny little drop of honeysuckle can create such an unbelievable wave of flavor, almost incomprehensible, that’s what a song or compliment can do for someone. 💦

Seeing the first peaches ripen and cheering them on, reminds us of the miracles going on below the surface. Stop and notice things like that, it does your heart good.🍑

“Even when you’re gone
Somehow you come along
Just like a flower poking through the sidewalk crack
And just like that
You steal away the rain
And just like that

You make me smile”
Smile Uncle Kracker