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This marks another addition to the regular feature here at little Indiana: Indiana Blogs! If you are an Indiana Blogger, please use the contact form and send me an email. You may be featured right here on little Indiana.
Indiana Blogs: The Ginger Kitchen
The Ginger Kitchen is an Indiana blog by a husband and wife cooking, baking, ice cream-making, blogging, and photography duo!
These two red heads create, test, and share delicious, one-of-a-kind recipes from the comfort of their cozy kitchen.
Meat eater or vegetarian, you’ll find plenty here to nibble, savor, and love!
Indiana Blogs: The Ginger Kitchen
Why did you start The Ginger Kitchen?
I started our blog in August 2010 as They Call Me Amber, an attempt to blog about everyday life, but it quickly evolved into a food blog when I realized that’s where our primary interests were and what most of the posts ended up being about.
In early 2011, I turned to the Twitter community and asked them what we should rename our blog. Several suggestions were given and then we did an online poll, highlighting The Ginger Kitchen as the winner. From that point on, my husband and I have focused the blog on two areas: recipes and restaurant reviews.
Personally, I’ve been blogging for about 6 years, both personally and professionally.
What about that name? Why The Ginger Kitchen?
As I mentioned, the name was crowd sourced from our Twitter followers, but the name was selected because both my husband and I are “gingers,” meaning we both have red hair.
We crowd sourced our tagline, as well: Food with Soul, playing on the idea that gingers don’t have souls.
What are three of your most favorite posts (with links, please!)
Though I love writing about my husband’s recipes, I have the most fun when I am writing about our experiences at local restaurants.
I believe is supporting local businesses, and my blog gives me the opportunity to shed light on those establishments and encourage people to visit. When we review a restaurant, we called it a Recker-mendation, a play on our name. Here are my favorite Recker-mendations:
- Friday Night’s at Old Crown
- Banh Mi Barista
- Cerulean
What keeps you ready and raring to post? Why do you blog?
To put it simply, I am a writer and I love it. This is one of many personal blogs that I maintain in addition to several professional blogs and freelance gigs. So, the answer is quite simple: I do it because I love it, truly.
A close second to my love for writing is my love for food, so it just seems natural that I should spend a great deal of time writing about food. Over the past few years, my husband and I have started to pay close attention to the type of food we put in our bodies, focusing on locally sourced food and more healthful eating. We want others to see how easy it is to make the change- we don’t eat anything that comes in a box or can, and we rarely eat anything that has been frozen.
The meals we prepare may not be as convenient as the ready-made stuff at the store, but with just a little extra effort, we can prepare a healthy meal sans the extra chemicals.
This is a two-person blog! Is it hard to blog with your spouse? What’s the best part of blogging together?
This is a two person blog, but the responsibility of writing and taking photos falls to me. My husband is the chef in the family, so he’s the one putting together our weekly menus, doing the grocery shopping, and preparing the meals.
Honestly, he has the hard part, but he truly loves it, so our partnership works well. He would never take the time to sit down and blog about our meals, but he likes sharing his passion for food with others, so this just works.
You feature a lot of different kinds of recipes. What’s your favorite thing to take images of and write about–and what’s his favorite thing to cook/bake?
I love taking photos of and writing about Asian noodle dishes. They are usually so colorful and full of varying shapes and textures. It seems almost impossible to take a bad photo of a well done Asian dish, and because they are so full of flavor, they are easy to write about, as well. They are definitely my favorite thing to make too because of the intense flavor combinations, but also their versatility. They can be made with almost any vegetable and meat you have available, as long as you have the write spices.
My husband enjoys baking and making ice cream, and he has created some incredible recipes in both genres.
One of my favorites is a grown-up cookie that incorporates sage and rosemary, providing a sweet and savory treat. He’s constantly crafting new ice cream recipes, as well, and one of my recent favorites is a Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Cayenne.
Do you have any fun and interesting projects in the works right now?
Funny you should ask. Yes. We are currently in the process of testing several gourmet ice cream flavors, with the intention of launching a mobile business this spring.
We have invested in some commercial grade ice cream equipment and have a group of investors involved to help us tweak our recipes. More details to come soon!
Since you spend a lot of time in the kitchen…if you could have anyone over for dinner (living or dead), who would they be and why? What would you serve?
That’s a tough one. You know, when my grandparents were alive, they always had us over for dinner, but I don’t think we ever hosted them at our house. When we got married, we moved to another state, so it wasn’t easy for my grandparents to visit.
I’d love to have them over for dinner and I’d serve pizza. That may sound strange, but my grandfather LOVED pizza. I think he’d enjoy some of the gourmet pizzas we’ve created in the past like arugula and prosciutto or goat cheese with figs.
Cooking with Soul
Do you or do you not want to dig in and get cooking? I know I do! Thanks to Amber and Jon of The Ginger Kitchen for popping over to little Indiana today!
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