Yay, the obligatory about page. Here we go.

The Hot Mess Kitchen started around 2015, give or take, because honestly I can’t even remember the exact date. At the time I was extreme couponing, making my own laundry soap, and trying to survive as a mom with two kids under five. Glamorous stuff.

My crowning moment, and the actual reason this site is called what it’s called, came courtesy of a melted pot on the stove. Yes, melted. Not burnt. Melted. If that’s not a hot mess origin story, I don’t know what is.

For an encore, I once gave myself second degree burns from a cup of noodles and boiling water. That takes real talent. Truly, a skill only I seem to possess.

And for the record: I was born in the 80s, survived the 90s and 2000s, and that’s my badge of honor. My curfew was “come in when the street lights come on.” I drank from a garden hose and lived to tell the story. I don’t need validation. I am the validation.

And somehow, despite all that, I actually know what I’m doing in a kitchen. My parental units put me through a heck ton of Extension Homemaker classes growing up, the kind where you learn proper cook temperatures one week and present on soybeans to a room full of Eastern North Carolina farmers the next. So yes, I have technically been vetted by actual farmers. No, that does not stop me from melting pots.

A few years back, an autoimmune disease made me get real about what I was shoving in my mouth. Turns out paying attention to your food matters, who knew.

These days I’m also deep in the delightful chaos of perimenopause, kicking ass through it as best I can, and at this point in my life I’m not interested in spending what’s left of it tip-toeing around or performing for opinions from people I don’t even respect. If that’s blunt, good. I meant it to be.

I’m writing this whole about page, frankly, just so you know there’s an actual real, slightly chaotic and highly caffeinated human behind this site and the bots have not taken over.

This is real food, made by someone who is busy, tired, occasionally on fire, but still has to feed her family. Real Food. Real Life. Real Messy. That’s the whole point.