About
Our blog focuses on fresh, local, organic, and homegrown food, prepared from scratch, inexpensively, and without fuss. Going far beyond the supermarket shelf, we share tips on making your own bread, yogurt, and puff pastry, hunting for morels, growing a garden, and even shooting and butchering your own supper.
With her love of hunting, butter, and a fearless approach to mastering new dishes, Sofya is a bit of a cross between Sarah Palin and Julia Child. She grew up in the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, but by the age of 23 found her way to the beautiful Driftless Region of Wisconsin, where she made a home on a ten-acre farm together with her husband Jacob and their two children. While she is at home with the traditional American cookery, a lot of her recipes are influenced by her native Russian and Azerbaijani cuisines. She can be contacted at driftlessopportunity (at) gmail (dot) com.
Rebecca grew up on the land in North Carolina and Ohio. Her parents were living green and off-the-grid back before it was cool. She used to complain about wearing thrift-store clothes and having to weed rows and rows of beans, but she finally figured out after years of city living that it was more fun trying to be a self-sufficient gourmet living off the land. She lives in Ohio with her husband Brendan, son Dominic, and daughter Avila, teaches philosophy and literature part-time most of the year, and runs a market garden business during the growing season.
Sofya and Rebecca,
You’ve produced a really terrific blog and we’re happy to promote it to our readers! The food looks so good and yes, we share a sort of culinary ethic. Please keep in touch.
Cheers,
Steve & Jason
I’m glad I came across you guys! And thanks!
I like your site; I’ll definitely come back. Would you be interested in a link exchange on the blogroll? My site is: natashaskitchen.com. Looks like we have some Russian recipes in common.
Thanks, Natasha, I like yours too! Let’s do the blogroll exchange – I think it’s good for people perusing the web in search of Russian dishes to see both at once. I’m gonna add yours right now.
So glad I found this blog! I’m a Wisconsinite now living in the UK with my husband and and son but we are hoping to soon make the move back and settle somewhere in the driftless area. So happy to see other young like-minded families who obviously have a love affair with the land and food π
It’s a good place to be!
Sofya, so nice meetingi you! You have a great blog! Wonderful recipes. Some of them (dovga, xingal) are my all-time favorites. Keep up the great work~
Well Farida, I couldn’t begin to tell you how much I like YOUR blog. Saying that I really really like it would be an understatement. I was going over your paxlava recipe last night and gearing up to make it. I think I might modify the filling a bit. You see – I love cardamom, and I don’t know why, I really associate it with cardamom. I love paxlava.
Really, the world needs you! Finding Azeri recipes with American measurements and ingredients is practically impossible outside of you blog. I don’t think your book has been published yet (?) but I would really like a copy once it is. I really struggle here because I grew up being offered all of those wonderful traditional dishes outside of my home back in Azerbaijan, but actually made very few myself – my mom was a somewhat limited cook, and we were Jewish, so many of the nice dishes, especially for pastries, I never learned how to make.
Which brings me to the following question – I was also wondering if you have a recipe for kutabi dough, and a recipe for shor-gogal. I don’t believe either is on your blog… unless I didn’t look well.
I have throughly enjoyed reading your blog and drooling over your recipes. A meal at your house is truly a celebration of real food and good food. I will be checking back frequently to see what might be served up in our home next! May you, your family and gardens/animals be richly blessed with abundance!
Thank you, Jacquelyn, I am glad you like it!
Hello Sofya and Rebecca. Great food blog! Glad to see another blogger in the Driftless Area. I love this place π
Driftless Appetite? I like that! I like your blog too! I’m going to check it out some more.
Thanks π Can I put you on my list of Wisconsin Food Blogs on our page?
That would be great! Thanks!
Hi, I live in the northern part of the driftless region and blog about dogs, science, gardening, cooking and backyard chickens. I just found your blog. I think it’s wonderful and plan to add it to my blogroll.