I dabble in fruit fly sexing, elevator repair, and hamster cloning. I literally do herd cats. I also love cooking and baking with mostly local ingredients. I cannot decorate a cake or cookie to save my life, but you better believe that hot mess of a baked good will be tasty. My gardening plans are always bigger than my ability to weed. If anyone can make the word ‘fetch’ happen, I think it will be me. I abuse commas. My house was built in 1894, and will take another 119 years to get renovated. I have rarely run into a sweet tea that is sweet enough. I swear with a Southern accent but the word ‘beer’ comes out 100% Wisconsin. I mostly post the truth. I am OCD about heirloom tomato varieties to the point that my husband hides seed catalogs from me. I believe in the holy trinity of Bacon, Biscuits, and Bourbon. If you never use soap to wash your cast iron and enjoy rocking on the porch with a drink, we’ll get along just fine. If you clutch your pearls and you don’t do it with irony, this is not the blog for you.

I started blogging years ago as a way to share my passion for locally-produced foods. I know that places like San Francisco were far ahead of us on that trend, but it was very new to Tennessee. When people actually replied to my posts, I started blogging more about recipes I liked and discovered the amazing, slightly dysfunctional world of food blogging. I learned how to take better pictures. I learned how to quit abusing commas as much. I learned that I will probably never learn the art of brevity.

I used to be at TNLocavore.com, but I knew at some point I would want to start writing about other things. I love great food with a passion. It’s a large part of my life, but it is not the center of my world. There’s too many other things I love: my husband, my family, my amazing friends, cats, gossiping over wine, renovating my old house, hiking, etc. I could go on and on.

So I changed my blog name to the one it currently has. I certainly have a mouth, I’m from the South, and now I can talk about whatever I want. Sometimes it will be serious, a lot of times it will poke fun at the absurdities of people taking themselves too seriously [including myself], but I will still post recipes regularly.

I want to make it clear that I post the food that I cook for my REAL life. I don’t spend time “developing” recipes. I won’t post something that isn’t delicious just to make sure I don’t miss my “food blogging scheduled posts.” Any branded product I use will be one that I use in my real life and that I like. I use very few processed foods in my cooking, but I’m not a snob about it. I will eat the hell out of a casserole topped with Cheez-Its. I have neither the money nor the time to make intricate meals on a regular basis, but every once in a while my husband and I go all out. We try to eat healthy so that we stay healthy – that way we can still enjoy the treats we love as we get older. The recipes and stories I post will reflect our life.

I’m going to talk about the things I like, the things I’m passionate about, and the things that worry me. I have no problem sharing some private aspects of my life with my readers, but if you’re looking for constant drama and over-sharing, you will probably find other blogs more interesting than mine. THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT: You need to be able to recognize sarcasm or you’re going to be mad and/or disgusted with me a lot.

Most importantly – I am not a product. I’m a writer and a blogger. You will never have to wonder if I’m writing about myself or just writing things to better my “brand.”

If you’d like to contact me via email, I’m at kristinamcleanREMOVEMEgmail.com – please don’t send me pitches for things that have nothing to do with my blog. They waste your time and mine, and nobody wants that.

NOTE: As of April 2013, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I’ll be cutting back a lot of my food blogging while I’m dealing with this. Blogging is a form of therapy for me, so expect quite a few cancer posts. My goal is to make so much fun of cancer that it slinks away from all us, totally embarrassed.