@Lauren_McDuffie, is the author of the beautiful and inspiring cookbook "Homemade-ish: Recipes and Cooking Tips That Keep It Real" Known for her knack of blending home-cooked charm with modern-day convenience, Lauren's work has been making waves in the culinary world. We'll dive into her creative process, chat about her beloved blog "My Kitchen Little," and get a glimpse into the life of someone who beautifully marries food, photography, and writing.So grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and get ready to be inspired by the delightful Lauren McDuffie.TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hi. Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, and I am here with the author Lauren McDuffie, Talking With My Mouth Full , and she is someone that I'm just getting familiar with. So Lauren, welcome to the program.Lauren McDuffie [00:00:26]:Thank you so much for having me.Stephanie [00:00:28]:Yeah. Your book, Homemade-ish, I think I saw it, like, on maybe a publisher's weekly list, and then I started paging through it. And you're I I hope this, like, hits you in the right way. You're kind of, like, sort of semi homemade ish, but not exactly.Lauren McDuffie [00:00:48]:Yes. No. That's you really hit the nail on the head with that. Okay. Yeah.Stephanie [00:00:52]:I used to watch semi homemade with Sandra Lee you. In the beginning of the Food Network days, and she's kinda gotten a bad rap. What I loved about her and what I loved when I was going through your book too is just this idea that we don't have to, like, make every single thing from scratch in order to put a decent meal on the table for our family.Lauren McDuffie [00:01:16]:Right. It's just that's just true.Stephanie [00:01:19]:And it prevents people sometimes from cooking at all. This idea that cooking is so complicated and so hard. And as someone who I mean, I'm just a home cook, and I feel like that's a great space where you can sometimes take shortcuts and also knowing the shortcuts to take.Lauren McDuffie [00:01:38]:Yes. Exactly.Stephanie [00:01:40]:So your book, Homemade-ishLauren McDuffie [00:01:42]:Mhmm.Stephanie [00:01:43]:Is really lovely. And I felt like was the modern day version of sort of that idea because your food looks incredible. Your you must be a are you a a photo stylist? Because your food in your book is, like, amazing.Lauren McDuffie [00:01:58]:Thank you. Yes. I did the photography and the styling for all my books, and it's I just love that part of the process so much. So thank you for saying that.Stephanie [00:02:07]:I did laugh because you have a piece in there you, talk about, like, I just love this. This is my joy. And I'm in the middle of finishing a second book, and I'm not feeling that it's my joy.Lauren McDuffie [00:02:23]:I get that too. Yeah. That's fair. I was like, I'm all the time. So I under Yeah.Stephanie [00:02:30]:I have 35 pictures left, and I don't even wanna eat the food anymore because I'm so sick of it.Lauren McDuffie [00:02:35]:Yep. You've spent enough time with it probably. Yes. I get that. I do.Stephanie [00:02:40]:So catch my listeners up a little bit about you and who you are and your blog.Lauren McDuffie [00:02:46]:Okay. So I yes. I run a, a recipe website called my kitchen little, which I think it just turned 5, like, within the past week. So I I don't know. In blog years, that's not a baby anymore. So and and I run it as a business, which I really, I really enjoy. But prior to this website, I had a blog, which was very much a writing space. I love to write, and I started that, I don't know, maybe 12, 13 years ago, a long time ago back when food blogs were still sort of a novel thing.Lauren McDuffie [00:03:19]:Not everyone had one at the time. So I started I started that when my daughter was was a baby, and I just needed an outlet. And for me, cooking has always been my favorite sort of creative outlet. I love food. I love to talk about food, and a blog just seemed like a really nice way to gather together my creative interest with writing and cooking. And and, eventually, I fell in love with photography just by necessity because I learned that people want to see what you're talking about. Yes. So I grew a new love for that whole side of it too.Lauren McDuffie [00:03:50]:So so I had a food blog for a really long time purely as a hobby, but I I I met a lot of other people along the way who were in in food land just like me but in different ways. And, I had the opportunity to do my my first cookbook several years ago, which was kind of an homage to my Appalachian roots. And then I did another book a few years later, which is called Southern Lights. I lived in Charleston, South Carolina at the time. AndStephanie [00:04:15]:You did? My brother lives there. I love Charleston so much.Lauren McDuffie [00:04:18]:I love you. We moved to Portland a year ago from Charleston, and I was very sad to leave. But I love Portland too. So so it's it's been fine. But, yeah, I have a special spot in my heart for Charleston, and that ...
