Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Meg Dickey, author of Cracking an Egg with One Hand.
What’s a Real Foodie?
A “real foodie” is someone who cooks “traditional” food. We cook stuff from scratch using real ingredients, like raw milk, grass-fed beef, eggs from chickens that run around outdoors, whole grains, sourdough and yogurt starters, mineral-rich sea salt, and natural sweeteners like honey and real maple syrup.
We don’t use modern foods that are either fake, super-refined, or denatured. This includes modern vegetable oils like Crisco and margarine, soy milk, meat from factory farms, pasteurized milk from cows eating corn and soybeans, refined white flour, factory-made sweeteners like HFCS or even refined white sugar, or commercial yeast.
We believe in eating wholesome, nutrient-dense foods that come from nature. So we shop at farmer’s markets or buy direct from the farmer, or we grow food in our own backyards.
This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Cracking An Egg With One Hand
This week I’m featuring Meg Dickey and her family. They live in Fresno, California, home of Organic Pastures, the biggest raw milk dairy in the state (and I believe in the country).
I love Meg’s kitchen! It reminds me a lot of my grandma’s kitchen in Ohio. Grandma Ruth passed away last year and she is greatly missed. Whenever I think about her, I think about her kitchen.
Over the years, her kitchen was a respite for me, as well as my brother and sister, my cousins, and our husbands, wives and children. Grandma was always cooking something yummy, and if she wasn’t, there was something good to snack on while you shared a laugh and lots of hugs.
In all those years, I loved the fact that my grandma never changed a single thing in her kitchen (it was exactly the same since they built the house in 1976). To me, a homey, well-used kitchen says love.
My kitchen. Tiny, but useful!
Blog Name: Cracking an Egg with One Hand, so named because I was standing at the stove one day, attempting to make breakfast while nursing an infant and had to learn quickly how to crack an egg with one hand! To me, it symbolizes the balance between eating well, and raising our children well.
Blog Author: Meg Dickey
How Long Blogging: Since 2006. Really trying to stay on top of blogging: 2009.
Location: Fresno, CA
House or Apartment: Neither! We live in a 40 ft. park model trailer… it makes taking our life with us easier when we move.
Size of Kitchen: 6 x 8 feet. Yup, you read that right.
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: Yes, I love how small it is! It keeps everything right at my fingertips, plus, it’s a great motivation for keeping things clean!
Things You Would Change: Only two things –- I’d so much rather have a window over the stove than a microwave! And a larger stove/oven — I can’t fit a few of my sheets and pans in the oven!
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: My “antique” Magic Mill grinder! It was a wedding present from my father, who had restored and renovated it. It does everything from a pastry flour grind to a coarse cereal. Perfect!
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: Places to keep it! We have a chest freezer, extra fridge, and a pantry area (where I store my bulk herbs) that are in an outdoor storage area. But everything else has to get eaten pretty quickly!
Current Family Favorite Meal: Grass-fed beef roast –- doesn’t matter if I braise it in red wine, simmer in our homemade spaghetti sauce, or just toss it in with potatoes; we never have leftovers of roast!
Favorite Cookbooks: Nourishing Traditions
gives me really great starting points for most of the things I cook. When I want to feel “gourmet”, I browse through Ren’s blog, Edible Aria –- it’s gorgeous, and everything I’ve tried turns out fantastic.
Here are some photos of Meg’s kitchen (her comments are in italics).
My largest amount of counter space
“Here’s our latest haul from the garden & farmer’s market. I also keep my cultured veggies, tinctures (that’s catnip on the left), and herbal vinegars & oils I’m infusing here, to take advantage of the sun through the window.”
A perfect still life! I’m sure it doesn’t stay still for long, though.
Center counter
“Cutting board, compost bucket, utensil holder, and teapots. We drink a lot of herbal tea… often.”
Stove and my Magic Mill grinder
“I’m making cheese today (raw milk feta), hence the stockpot with thermometer. My mortar & pestle get a lot of use too, since I rarely have the time to go grab my food processor out of the storage room!”
Yum! I love feta cheese. I’d love to try making raw milk feta one of these days. I bet it’s fabulous.
I also love how you are able to get so much mileage out of such a small kitchen. Very impressive!
How I keep my sanity - my lists!
“I have a daily schedule for the kiddos, a household schedule for keeping track of what needs to be done each day, and then a reminder list for myself, in case I have a spare minute and can’t think of what to do!”
Love the lists! I want to be that organized.
Another method for my sanity - weekly menu!
“I’m the only cook, so when I’m not prepared, the whole house & budget suffers! During the winter, I add our two daily snacks to the meal plan, too, but during the summer, it’s just whatever fruit + cheese happens to be around.”
Top of the fridge
“My kombucha (this batch is a green/black blend with mango & chili — smells divine!) & water kefir (which will be a lemon/hibiscus blend tomorrow). I know, you’re not supposed to ferment them next to each other, but if I run out of room down below, up it goes!”
My 'pretty counter'
“This is where my cookbooks hang out, and the menus are planned according to the large calendar above it. [Also, please note the 50 lb bag of organic oatmeal, and numerous 1/2 gallon mason jars for milk. We store where we can!"
Oh, man, I love the calendar! Having a visual like that seems like it would really you be more organized.
Side view, replete with summer produce!
Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Yolks, Kefir & Gristle
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Okparaeke Family
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Kid
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Artistta
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Nourished & Nurtured
Real Food Kitchen Tour: May All Seasons Be Sweet to Thee
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Horting Family
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Hybrid Rasta Mama
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Granola Mom 4 God
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food Devotee
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food Forager
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Leftover Queen
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Health Home & Happiness
Let Us Tour Your Kitchen
Are you a real foodie? Do you have a kitchen that you’d like to see featured on CHEESESLAVE?
Please email me at annmarie AT realfoodmedia dot com. Either send me a link to a Flickr set or email me your photos (minimum of 5, but more is better). Note: Please send me LARGE photos. Minimum 610 width. If they’re too small, I can’t use them.
Oh, and please send the answers to the above questions (at the very top of this post).
As much as I’d love to include all the photos I receive, I can’t guarantee that I will use your photos in the series. I’m looking for creative, good quality photos.
Some ideas for photos:
- Show us what’s in your fridge or what’s fermenting on your counter
- Take some snaps of some of your favorite kitchen gadgets, or show us how you organize your spices
- Got backyard chickens? Send some pics!
- How about a lovely herb garden?
- Kids or pets are always cute!
- Try to include at least one photo of yourself, ideally in your kitchen
And no, you don’t have to have a blog to be included in the tour.
Photo credit: A warm welcome Project365(3) Day 10 by Keith Williamson, on Flickr and photos by Meg Dickey.
Disclosure: cmp.ly/4 and cmp.ly/5
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this cozy kitchen, Meg – and how much you can stuff into it! Awesome!
I LOVE the name of your blog! I too have an infant, and immediately knew what your blog title meant! I love it! I have yet to master the art of successfully cracking an egg with one hand!
Thanks, Rachel – I’ve been getting a refresher course every two years, with each new baby!
It’s definitely been fun.
I love your kitchen, Meg. It looks so homey.
Thanks, Lovelyn! It really is.
I think these are so fun! I love that you do this AnneMarie!
Thanks, Jenn. I really enjoyed yours, too.
Especially the bookshelf!
You have a beautiful kitchen and a beautiful blog! I loved your “About” section and your heart to raise your family for Gods glory!!
Thank you!
This kitchen is the sweetest little kitchen and most homey kitchen i have ever seem! I love the tight small cozy farm, feel over the huge granite counters any day. I love the blue and yellow you chose also-very Scandinavian almost!! I am such a fan of yours, you have such wonderful taste in food, and order, and decorative home styles, and I hope to somehow someday by the Lords help become a women with your kind of skill and order! where do you learn about meal planing? How do i go about meal planing, using what you got already, finding recipes and shopping for it? it sounds soooo hard, and just complicated, i tried and was all over the store and then tried to write the recipes ingredients of what i needed on a piece of paper and by the time i got half way through it i went around the store 60 times and got home and was like what did you buy, nothing i could really use together. thanks. I need a mama to teach me these things.
Hi Emily –
A friend told me about the Menu Plan Monday meme, and I jumped right in. 
If you struggle with planning your meals, you can start with just planning one meal. I started with breakfast, cos it’s the easiest. 
Then after sticking with it for one month, add another meal. There are a TON of people out there who have traditional foods menu plans available (I really like Jenny’s, from Nourished Kitchen for the “grown-up” food, and Kara’s, from Home, Health, Happiness for the “everyday” food, esp. for GAPS help). Those plans come with shopping lists, preparation plans, etc. They are a GREAT step forward into the meal planning world.
Thanks for your lovely comment.
I understand that frustration when it comes to meal planning. I learned about meal planning from the Internet!
Also, you can take a look thru my blog’s archives and find over 2 years of menus that our family used. It doesn’t come with shopping lists, but most of them have preparation schedules with them, to help organize the meal.
I just read the answers you gave up top, (yes, pics are first for most of us) and Im soo inspired! I saw you live in a park model home/trailer. I have always wanted to live in one of those, or a r.v. ish style home and start a family!! I even told my fiance when we met that I don’t want a large home, or a house for that matter, and with big mortgage, I simply want a mobile home or a rv to live in until the Lord Jesus sees it fit to move to a doublewide, I just love the feel more than anything, people think im crazy but i love them!! Also, Land is more important to me/us anyway, with wanting to get some cows for raw milk and to continue my raised bed gardening. The Lord has given me real simple desires/and dreams. I love the idea of being a closely knit family, a money saving family. Im sooo inspired by this!!! You have no idea, when I show Tim, my Fiance he will love it also, and He also is looking foward to our little mobile home on a piece of land! We are saving for it now! I just want a home of our own, Any home, and Im fine with a used rv, Thats less to vaccum and keep up on, and with a spine/pelvis disability that’s a good thing! Thank yo sooo much for sharing this! I love your home soo much!!!
Thanks, Emily. It’s definitely not for everyone, and I’ll be the first to admit, if we have any more kiddos (we’re at 3 now), we’ll probably have to consider something different. But for now, it works, and you’re right – less to vacuum is ALWAYS a good thing.
Ive tried to convince my husband to live in either a travel trailer (or a yurt) too but with six kiddos he thinks I’m a bit crazy
I’m SURE it could work though 
I would have to have somewhere to plug in our big chest freezer though.
We looked at yurts for a while before choosing a trailer – we are nearly 3 years into living in this model, and we have just about a year left in payments. The yurts we looked at that were of the same general size & quality were double, if not triple the cost we paid. Plus, it’s literally a “roll in the hoses and fold in the steps” kind of move, rather than the yurt’s more dramatic requirements.
With 6 kids, I’d have to re-contemplate an itty-bitty home.
If money wasn’t an issue, we’d look more closely at the Tumbleweed Homes – they are absolutely beautiful, customizable, and TINY. 
But $45,000+ for a home just isn’t in our budget right now.
Hi Meg.
Love you kitchen and how organized you are.
I live in the mountains about a hour north of you. (hwy 41)
I do go to Fresno often, but where to you buy Raw milk from, and what
Farmers market do you go to?
Do you know of any place to buy healthy Sour Dough starter?
I go to Christina for Raw grass feed organic butter, but don’t know where else to go!
(Don’t think Whole Foods has what I’m looking for!?)
Thanks for Sharing,
Annie
Hi Annie –
Turns out, it’s cheaper for us to keep 3 goats than to continue to buy milk in our area. We are very blessed to be able to do this, and it keeps costs down in other ways too (cheese, cream, etc).
We (thankfully) don’t have to buy raw milk! We were spending a ridiculous amount of money on raw milk [our family of 5 drinks approx. 6 gallons a week x $10-12 per gallon from OPDC = $60-75 a week!] so we looked into getting our own goat!
We usually use the Vineyard Farmer’s Market, at Shaw & Blackstone, in Fresno. They are there Wednesday from 3-6 pm, and Saturday from 7 am – noon. I also like the little market outside Kristina’s on Saturday’s from 6 am – noon. They are also the only place you can buy Organic Pastures (not from a store).
I’m a chapter leader for the Weston Price Foundation here in the Valley – we just so happen to always have sourdough starter on hand. Contact me at hiddenpathways(at)gmail(dot)com and we’ll get you some.
I just measured, and my kitchen is 6′ x 12′. Yours is more attractive and better organized than mine, though. I do try to avoid buying gadgets, especially those that are single-purpose. Good knives, thick wooden cutting boards, cast iron cookware and Mason jars for storage help keep things simple and efficient.
Thanks so much for the mention, I’m honored!
I think that’s why I’ve always liked your blog, Ren – you keep it simple, and it always looks fantastic.
Thank YOU.
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