I’m Heather, and I’m so glad you’re here! As the writer, recipe developer, baker, photographer and social media manager of this blog since 2011, you’ll usually find me in the kitchen, covered in flour and wrangling two little boys who want to help, or at my laptop editing photos and writing up recipes.
To me, the kitchen is the heart and soul of a home. It’s where I feel inspired to create beauty through food. It’s the place where everyone gathers, where my boys help me bake, where people feel warm and comfortable and full, where the lovely aromas of apple crumbles, freshly baked breads and layer cakes, flaky pie crusts, warm pots of soup, cinnamon and sugar and steaming coffee permeate the rest of the house, drawing everyone back to the kitchen.
Living in Colorado at an altitude of 5,280 feet, I’ve spent years testing and re-testing my recipes to perfect them for other high altitude bakers who struggle with baking in the mountains. And every recipe I create is tested, tasted and photographed by humans, and never AI generated, to provide you with delicious, dependable recipes that you can recreate in your own kitchen. I hope you find my recipes to be a valuable resource to help you with your own high altitude bakes!
Want to know more?
- I graduated college with a degree in Creative Writing and English Literature. When I was 22, I took a job in Dalian, China, where I lived for three years from 2001-2004, teaching English as a second language at a computer college. I was able to travel all over China, Hong Kong and Tibet, and had so many incredible experiences. In Tibet, I became extremely ill with high altitude pulmonary edema, and would have died if my friends hadn’t taken me to a hospital in Shigatse to get oxygen. Those years abroad were some of the most memorable and amazing times I’ve ever had. You can read more about my experience in China in this post, if you’re interested.
- I still love to travel, and recently took a 10-day solo trip to Scotland, too.
- When I was 30, my husband and I met on eHarmony (he lived in Denver and I lived in Longmont at the time). We were married 5 years later, and now we have two wonderful little boys together. They are my world. My husband is a great cook, and during our early years (before kids), we spent a lot of time cooking fancy meals together for date nights.
- I hate sports, reality tv and competition shows. I miss the old cooking shows. My all time favorite shows are Outlander, The Walking Dead (first 5 seasons), Game of Thrones, Gilmore Girls, Downton Abbey, and Breaking Bad. Favorite movies are Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Jane Austen type period movies, and apocalyptic genres where the world is ending. Definitely a mix of romantic classics, fantasy and sci-fi!
- I’m a total introvert, and an HSP. I’d so much rather watch a movie at home than go to a party or somewhere loud and crowded.
- I love photography so much, and really, really hate the social media trend towards video, although I’ve started to get into videography, and have been slowly adding some videos of my recipes to both my recipe cards and my YouTube channel.
- Although I’m a creative person, most of my previous work experience is in customer service, a career that made me pretty unhappy. When my first son was born, I quit my corporate job to be home with him. During that first year of being a new mother, I tried various things to supplement our income whenever he was napping, such as decorating and selling custom cakes, cupcakes and baked goods. I even had an Etsy shop for a while, where I sold handmade aprons that I sewed from vintage fabrics. At one point, I was determined to write a cookbook, but I had no idea what I was doing, and realized it wasn’t the right time for that project. Then our second son was born 18 months after our first, and it became even more challenging to find time for myself.
- Eventually, I decided to focus on updating my website so I could monetize it and turn it into my career. I took a photography course, and then I put every second of my spare time into retesting, rewriting and rephotographing almost every single recipe on my website, working late into the night every day for a year until my page views started to climb.
- I don’t have an assistant or a team. Everything you see on my website and social media channels comes from me. One person can only do so much, so at times I may spend less time on Instagram responding to DMs and comments so that I can focus on creating content for my site.
- Baking and photography is my passion, my heart and my soul, and every day I’m so grateful that this is what I get to do for a living now. I’m forever thankful for my husband, my biggest supporter of everything I strive for. And I’m grateful to all of you who visit my site, try my recipes and leave reviews and star ratings! This is one of the best things you can do to support your favorite food bloggers and website owners, so that we can continue to create new content for you.
