Me and the love of my life!
Hello! Thanks for stopping by! I’m Kelly, and originally from Champaign, Illinois and NW Indiana! My wonderful hubby Tom, our rescue kitty Snowshoe Siamese “Gilbert”, our outdoor kitty “Betsy” and I all live in a cottage right on a small lake in New Jersey. We bought our home 3 years ago and have been remodeling the kitchen first. Though the house needs a bit of work, it’s in good shape and the scenery and wildlife makes all the frustration more than worth it! I have several hobbies that I enjoy, but my passion will always be in the kitchen or out on the deck grilling, cooking and baking! I also enjoy photography and gardening and have been trying to grow as many vegetables and herbs as I can right out on the deck!
Though I’m a happy, stay-at-home wife now, I’ve been around restaurants most of my life! I had my own catering business for more than 20 years and even owned and operated my own restaurant for awhile many years ago! I’ve had no formal training or culinary degrees, just many years of hands-on experience and lots of hard work! I’ve also been published in Better Homes and Gardens magazine 6 times, as well as Taste of Home magazine, for which I’ve been a Field Editor since the mid ’90’s!
I’ve won many awards from both magazines as well as being a First Place winner quite a few times for local Chili Cook-Offs back in Indiana as well as New Jersey! SO much fun!!
Our pride and joy is our sweet fur baby (above), “Gilbert the Miracle Kitty”! We were so very lucky to have been able to adopt him! He was actually famous through tragedy when his life got a very rough start. He fell off of a 7-story balcony and had massive facial injuries, broken ribs and both of his front legs were broken. A good samaritan brought him to an animal hospital in New York, and when he was mostly healed, he went up for adoption. His story went nationwide, so there were hundreds of thousands of applicants. For whatever reason, they chose my husband and myself to keep him! One of the luckiest days of our lives! Our lives would definitely not be the same without him!
This is our happy place! Extremely calm day on the lake! I was lucky to take this photo when the water was as still as glass!
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