Hi, my name is Debbie Spivey. I am the author and photographer here at my blog I call “The Mountain Kitchen,” a blog that shares delicious homemade recipes, with clean food ingredients, including grilling recipes by my husband David, and a place where I reminisce about life tell stories about mountain life. I am a Melanoma Survivor and share my experience with skin cancer with others to help raise awareness for this deadly disease.
I grew up a farmer’s daughter so deep in the country that the roads have no lines on them. I now live on the side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia with my husband and the love of my life, David.
I have always loved to cook. As a child, I watched both of my parents cook and never turned the television away from the great Julia Child or Justin Wilson when they were on PBS. I didn’t realize how much I was absorbing. Inspired by something I saw (long before Food Network or the Cooking Channel existed), I would go outside and have my own cooking show right there in the backyard. I would steal vegetables out of my parent’s garden to incorporate into my recipes which mostly consisted of mud. Believe me; my mud-battered hydrangea leaves were the best-fried fish around. Especially those mud pies I used to make.
I have tortured people for years by uploading pictures of finished dishes to social networking sites. I want to share my dishes with others, but I’m afraid many people have hidden me or deleted me for posting pictures of food all the time. That’s why I have decided to become a… Wait for it… “FOOD BLOGGER”!! Yeah, I know, oh, another one of those right?!… I like being able to keep some kind of journal about what I do in the kitchen and our life on the mountain.
I started this blog in February of 2013 with terrible smoker’s flu and a passion for food. I didn’t know I was going to like blogging so much. Writing this blog has been a great experience. It has given me some great opportunities, and most importantly, it has given me some pretty great friendships. I did not expect to make so many new friends. I love communicating with people from different walks of life all over the world. Sharing experiences with others and then learning from them and their experiences.
I always get asked where I find the recipes I cook. My answer is always the same. I find almost all of my recipes online or in magazines, but I almost always put my own spin on them, usually taking out anything processed and making them as natural as possible. I love food, which makes it easy for me to become inspired to cook and want to cook.
My blog is designed to get readers to laugh, learn something new and find something good to cook and eat. We are Meatless on Monday, we grill often, and occasionally I bake. There is always something good to eat and a story to go along with the food. In our mountain kitchen, you never know what is going to happen.
My favorite cuisine to make is Italian. All those wonderful ewwy gooey cheesy pastas covered in tomato sauce. It’s truly my comfort food. I guess that’s why David calls me “The Blonde Italian.” I don’t have a single drop of Italian blood in me. I can only assume that my passion for Italian cuisine comes out in the taste of the dishes I make.
Thank you for stopping by to visit us at The Mountain Kitchen. Your visits are what makes all of this so worthwhile. It is you! You, the person that took 5 minutes out of their day to see what kind of crazy meals David and I made and our life here up on the Blue Ridge, or to read the crazy stories like the one about bears and goats.
Our wish is that you get a good laugh, learn something new and find something good to eat while you are here. Then take it and share it with the ones you love.
Thanks for your visit. Please come back soon!