Hello and welcome! My name is Jennie and I'm a home cook and baker. I started this blog as a place to direct my friends and family to when they wanted one of my favorite recipes. It's taken on a personality of it's own! I have a wonderful husband, three darling children, an adorable miniature schnauzer and a crazy kitty and we are living happily ever after on the coast of Maine. Pull up a chair and a beverage and stay a while! If you'd like to contact me, please feel free to email me at tuffetblog(at)gmail(dot)com, I would love to hear from you!
I'm nosy by nature and I love to see little bits and pieces of other people's lives. I'm assuming you do too, or you wouldn't be here, right? I mean, that's sort of what blogging is! Especially food blogging, for me at least. One part cooking show, one part reality series! So I thought you might like more of a peek into my world!
These are our beautiful children:
Reese is our oldest. Five years old and ALL BOY! He loves robots, pirates, bad guys, Star Wars, tractors, etc, etc, etc. He just started Kindergarten this Fall and he absolutely loves it! He is loud and fun and active and gives me a run for my money!
Amelia is our middle child. A sweet and spicy little four-year-old drama queen! She knows what she wants and she's not afraid to demand it! She loves ponies, horses, the color pink, ponies, and did I mention horses? Most of the time she IS a horse!
Jillian is our baby. Easy going, happy, and full of joy! She's still just little, a year and a half old, but her personality comes shining through. She prefers handmade toys, especially ones made by her grandma! She loves her babies and dress up and cupCAKES. She's got a sweet tooth like her mommy!
We live in a quiet little town on the coast of Maine. I can't even express how happy I am to live here. We've got hills and valleys, forests and meadows, lakes, streams and the ocean. The land is a hundred different textures and a thousand different colors! I grew up in Northern Utah (i.e. the desert), so all of this is a drastic change for me! We moved here in December 2009, and have done a little bit of exploring since, when we weren't all wrapped up with the move, settling in, throwing kids' birthday parties, and entertaining visitors! We've loved it all and can't wait to explore some more!
If you're new to my blog, you can probably tell that I love to bake. This is my kitchen, my favorite room in the house. It's such a bright, happy place that I want to spend ALL my time here!
In a previous life (right after high school) I spent all my hours as the assistant director of a local fashion show in my home town. You'd never know it now, since I wear tennis shoes every day and only dress up once in a blue moon! I remember, as a teenager, seeing haggard mothers in the grocery store and thinking, "Geez! Why can't she just spend a few minutes blow-drying her hair? Or slapping on a little make up? I am NEVER going to wear sweats out in public!!!" Hehehe. Complacent teenager! Because she has small children, THAT'S why! Now I'm that mom, hair in a pony tail, minimal make-up, but I am happy to say that I don't own any sweats. Yoga pants, yes; sweats, no!
I met my hubby, Jay, at a small airfield in Spokane, Washington. He was going to school and working there part time after serving eight years in the Air Force. I was getting my private pilot's license. That's right, I can fly! Well, I used to fly. I haven't been up for quite some time, but I hope to get back to it someday. It's absolutely exhilarating! Jay and I have been married for 6 years now. We've been through a lot so far; 2 pets, 3 kids, 5 moves, night shift, night school, lifestyle changes, my blogging obsession (just kidding). . . .
Now we have one child in Kindergarten, one in preschool, and one who likes to take nice, long naps during the day. I'm having a hard time adjusting to all my newly acquired free time! Not! (Who says 'not!' anymore?) I've been playing around in my kitchen, reading, and spending time crafting without little tiny hands picking at my projects!
So, you may be wondering why my blog is called Tuffet. It's all because of my beautiful friend, Claudia. Claudia loves tea and throws spectacular tea parties. And I had a period where I became absolutely obsessed with baking scones. Claudia came over to our apartment for tea and scones one day and made the comment that I should make some lemon curd to go with them. So my obsession with scones morphed into an obsession with lemon curd. I tried TONS of recipes before I found one I really liked! After I had a winner I had Claudia over again for tea with scones and my new lemon curd. She loved it and told me I should bottle it and sell it. Well, I had two babies at the time, so that wasn't really an option.
Later, after I had moved across the state and potty trained my kiddles I thought about the whole lemon curd selling thing again. I hit upon the idea of selling it at the local farmer's market. I planned exactly what my booth should look like, thought up other products to go with the lemon curd and decided on a name. I wanted something that was one word and memorable. I came up with 'Tuffet' and the slogan: 'Curds and way. . .more!' Get it? I thought it was pretty clever. So I had a name and an idea, then I started looking into the business side of things. And it turns out that the food service industry in Washington state is HIGHLY regulated (like, don't even THINK about doing something out of a home kitchen) and if you're selling something you've canned you fall under the Agriculture department's regulations which are even more stringent. So I put the idea aside and moved on with my life.
Then I started reading food blogs again and got the itch. I'd been thinking of myself as Tuffet for so long, that it just seemed like a natural choice for my blog. Even though most people would never associate it with food! Oh well, I liked it and it fit me, so here we are and that's the end of the story ;)
