Welcome to Tie Your Hair Back!

Welcome to Tie Your Hair Back! You've found my inaugural post. This blog is being created to share my talents and loves with those around me, and in our ever-shrinking reality and our ever-expanding digital world, my proximity to other people is increasing. I hope you can put to good use my recipes, instructions and photos. My hope is to share both my favorite time-tested recipes and techniques, like my sought-after snowflake sugar cookies, as well as a few new things as I discover them. Some may even be recipes that I have enjoyed for years and am finally attempting myself, like my recent venture into home canning. My mother and grandmother may be by my side, as my great-grandmother will always be in spirit. She has inspired generations of us to keep her flavor alive, and we all hope we can do her justice.

I started cooking "officially" in third grade, when I joined 4-H through the Ohio State 4-H program. My first 4-H project taught me how to make cold-cut sandwiches, slice carrot sticks, and use measuring cups and spoons properly. My last 4-H project had me cooking a five course dinner for my grandparents' dinner club of eight people, and resulted in an Ohio State Fair clock trophy. I had won at county for eight or nine years (all but my first) but I had never so much as placed in the top 20% at the State Fair. I had taken the newest, hardest Food and Nutrition project they had, and had decided it would be my last year taking a Food and Nutrition project; I also knew it would be my last opportunity to get my great-grandmother to go with us. I stopped little short of simply telling her she was going, and it must have been the encouragement I needed, because she was there to see me win. It is one of the high points of my life. (The stubborn 89-year-old woman who didn't want to "bother" us should we have to push her in a wheelchair all day even took a ride on the SkyRide; apparently the hot air balloon ride for her 75th birthday just hadn't quashed her thirst for thrills.)

Me baking, with my hair (mostly) tied back

The background on this page is also dear to my heart; it is in fact the pattern from the apron in which I love to cook. My mother made it when she was young and in 4-H, guided by her mother who had been in 4-H, and even my great-grandmother had cooked in 4-H years and years and years ago. (Great-Grandma's only real story about her 4-H experience is the time she was sitting outside shelling peas and accidentally knocked over her bowl; the family chickens picked up the peas before she could. "They ate my 4-H project!")

So please, read on, enjoy, utilize, and follow my blog. More coming soon!