And tastyrecipes is my little corner of the internet!
I launched tastyrecipes in March 2016 while I was still working full‑time as a graphic designer in Portland. I’d been juggling a tiny kitchen garden and a mountain of food‑blog posts on the side, and one rainy evening I realized I wanted a place where I could share the dishes that kept my family fed and my friends impressed. The first post was a simple lemon‑thyme roasted chicken that got 1,200 views in the first week—enough to convince me that I was onto something.
Fast‑forward to today, tastyrecipes reaches about 150 000 unique visitors each month and has a newsletter of 2 300 subscribers who get my “Friday Flavor” roundup. In 2023 the site was featured in the Asheville Gazette’s “Top 10 Local Food Blogs,” and I’ve added a video series that now has over 80 000 combined views on YouTube. I’ve also partnered with three local farms to create seasonal “farm‑to‑table” recipe guides that are downloaded more than 5 000 times a year.
I live in Asheville, North Carolina, with my husband, Mark, and our two kids, Lily (7) and Jonah (4). When I’m not in the kitchen, you’ll find me hiking the Blue Ridge Mountains, tending to my rosemary and mint beds, or sipping a cold brew while scrolling through old family photo albums. My favorite things are fresh basil, a good paperback, and Sunday mornings spent at the farmer’s market.
One quirky habit I’ve kept from my design days is sketching a quick doodle of every dish before I photograph it. It helps me see the plate from a different angle and makes the whole process feel a little more playful. If you ever drop by the site, you’ll see those sketches tucked into the recipe headers—just a small reminder that cooking, like design, is as much about the process as the final product.