Sweetly Official!

I have been working on a project for about…mmm…5 months now. I am nearing the very end and it is finally time to share. Sadly, some people I love might actually find out from my blog before hearing from me! I have been keeping it quiet until now. Now that it is time to reveal everthing I am so, busy, so busy…like not cooking busy…sigh. However, I finally have wrapped up the official stuff(licenses and tigers and insurance…oh my) and am ready to roll.

I, my friends, have an LLC. Making what food you ask? Not a spec is my answer. Clearly, the logical extension to most would be to do some sort of food product and frankly, for a long time I thought I would as well. However, life is full of twists and turns and alas, food has nothing to do with my LLC.

So, what is it you ask??? I am making all natural bath and skin care products for adults and babies. Crazy…I know! The reality is, I have been doing it for years. I won’t bore you with the where’s and whys of it, but I finally decided to do it as a business.



So here are the specifics… cuz I KNOW you are on the edge of your seats….

The product line is called Sweet Cheeks. Why? Because, it is what I call my kids and when my husband is really lucky….him. I wanted to use all natural products that are good for the skin and good for the earth. All the oils used are plant based which means that your skin is able to absorb them as opposed to just sitting on top of the skin. Funny, however, when deciding to start a company, the hard part wasn’t what ingredients to use to make my products, it was how to package them in a way that was gentle to the earth. To that end, most of Sweet Cheeks products are in glass containers and I am working hard to get all of them in glass and/or with as minimal packaging as possible.





So all my RVA peeps (yeah… I whipped out peeps) PLEASE come by and say hi. I will be at the West End farmers market every Wednesday (3-7) starting the April 28th and the St. Stephens farmers market about every other Saturday starting May 1st. You can also find me on Etsy, but I won't have any product on there until after the first farmers markets.

Plus follow Sweet Cheeks on facebook and twitter for specials!!

Some Cheese, Some Meat and a Teaser

It was a fantastic weekend in RVA. Saturday I headed over to the farmers market to see cheese maker extraordinaire Rona from Sullivan’s Pond Farm (http://www.sullivanspond.com). This week I got blue, a waxed goats and some eggs. Then, I headed home. Just FYI guys you can go to her website and have her set aside things for you, because she has been know to sell out. Also, she will have asparagus this week.

Several weekends ago I told you about the new beds we put in, this weekend I planted them. It is a schooch early since our frost free date is the 15th, but I threw caution to the wind. Saturday was a long day. With the exception of some okra, eggplant and tomatoes most of what was going in was direct sow, so that was a lot of holes, filled with compost. It was a lot of time in what I am sure looked like a horrible rendition of downward dog to my neighbors. I was tired and as a wonderful reward we sat on the patio and the kids dinned al fresco and we dinned on cheese (frankly my favorite sort of dinner). Both cheese were out of this world. Thanks again Rona!




The next day we had friends over for…I don’t know what you would call it. Soft tacos, meat stuffed tortillas??? I don’t know but it amounted to yummy goodness.

2 lbs sirloin
2 cloves garlic grated
1 tsp salt
¼ cup lemon
¼ oil

Put it all in a bag and marinate for 4 hours or so then cook. I grilled it. Frankly, I did the unthinkable, I put the meat on the grill and then forgot about it. Oppps. When I came running outside as if my hair was on fire I was very thankful to see it was not a black mess, but interestingly I did not have to flip the meat??? Either way, meat, lettuce, salsa, sour cream and avocado all packed into a plump tortilla.... forgetaboutit.




Oh and the company…superb as always!!


So I have been super busy of late, working on a big project. I miss seeing some of my favorite blogs but hope I will get more time for my favorite reads once I finish tieing up some loose ends. That said, I hope everyone checks out St. Stephen’s Farmers Market this summer http://saintstephensrichmond.net/templates/System/details.asp?id=47922&PID=730854. If you want more teasers...follow me on twitter...all for now….

Farm to Family….Finally!

Say that ten time fast!! So I finally made to farm to family. On Fridays their bus is about a mile from my house. However, I always forget. Today I was driving home from getting compost and there they were! I have to say, I had both kids, they were busy and I felt totally overwhelmed, but it was really cool. The guy even gave Tristan a neat packet that contained seeds so he could grow his own food, sadly either we left it there or from point A to point B it got lost. I love that they do this because the surest way to get kids to eat things is to first engage them. Tristan will not eat salads from store brought lettuce, but let us go pick it, clean it and dry it together and all he can talk about is how much he wants that salad. Plus it gives them an appreciation for what it takes to grow food.

As is typical in my life, I am not a trend setter, so I figure I am the last person that has finally gone to check them out. However, if for some reason you haven’t go. You can also find them on Facebook.

Easter Egg Hunts

So does anyone know why the tradition of coloring Easter Eggs came into being. And why, oh why, are giant sized bunny’s hiding said eggs?




I mean, really, is it just a reason to have egg salad?