Once upon a time, I was a young woman obsessed with traditional foods, raw milk, and ferments. Then I became a mother and got even crunchier. I bought a grain mill. I lived on a hobby farm, collecting eggs from chickens, and eating tomatoes as big as my baby’s head straight out of the garden, and grinding millet for my morning breakfast. Then I had a home birth! I started a blog! I opened a coffeehouse! Then a BAKERY!
Then… life happened. I lost a baby. I left my faith. I found a new one. My marriage dissolved. I found a new one of those, too.
In the midst of all this transition and change, I wrote novels, and discovered a new understanding of life, the universe, and everything, but keeping up with my former way of eating and living slow… fell by the wayside. McDonald’s crept in. Eek!
But I was still… obsessed. With permaculture, and regenerative agriculture, and local, and community, and a golden future I could see for myself and humanity.
I went to therapy. (Not for the first time, but definitely the first time it clicked.)
I discovered gifts within myself that I had suppressed for my entire life.
I published two novels, with more on the way.
And in the midst of all of it, my health steadily declined into complete collapse.
Last year, I discovered that I had received a Hashimoto’s diagnosis back in 2020, but because the results had come in during the height of COVID, the message never actually got relayed to me.
In the almost two decades of this roller coaster of transition, the Hashimoto’s diagnosis and the decision to actually treat my ADHD (which I was diagnosed with in my twenties, but never actually medicated for) was perhaps the biggest shake up of them all. With the Hashimoto’s, I knew I had to completely change my diet, and that I wanted to get back to what I knew (and preferred.)
I started intermittent fasting. I went carnivore for a few months. I lost 80 pounds from my highest weight after my last pregnancy. I started doing sourdough again. I made a LOT of cinnamon rolls and gained back a little bit of that weight. heh.
But meanwhile, my body is still healing. The fibromyalgia and constant fatigue make it impossible to work a traditional job. My energy levels are variable and erratic. But I’m a dreamer at heart. And I have big dreams, HUGE dreams! And one of my dreams is to feed people. To nourish them, body, heart, mind, and soul. It’s why I write books, and it’s why I bake bread.
It’s my love language.
I had the idea recently that maybe I could let other people eat my cinnamon rolls instead of eating them all myself, and perhaps this was the solution I was looking for in my healing journey and my desire to one day open up my coffeehouse/bakery/café again.
The dream may be big, but I can start small. And as a teacher/storyteller, what better way to build community than to teach people how to feed themselves with sourdough and other fermented, cultured foods, eating locally and slow, and discovering news ways to do old things?
So I’m back, baby. Cultured Mama, my food blog persona, is BACK! And stepping out from behind the keyboard and into the community to teach classes and workshops, and when my energy allows it, to do some pop-up events! I’ve opened up my YouTube channel and will hopefully get some content up soon.
I’m excited to get out there. Mind the dust around here; the website is still under construction, so some links may go to nowhere, and I have a lot of updates to put up yet, and products to create and recipes to log. This may take a while. Watch where you sit– there’s flour EVERYWHERE and the Nutrimill is fairly loud, but… the cinnamon rolls are really really good.
I’m glad you’re here. Thanks for coming.
Michael Dawn Brooks
The Cultured Mama, reminding you to culture your food, culture your thoughts, and culture your soul.
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