About Amy

Hello there! Thank you for stopping by!

I’m Amy, and I started Poor Girl Gourmet in October 2008 after finding myself with a dearth of work, and therefore a tight budget, coupled with pesky high standards for eating top-quality meals at home.

Good food and I had been embroiled in a love affair for quite a while - like, most of my life - which I felt was far too long a time to give up on it over a little money problem.

I had been cooking elaborate meals for years, creating recipes, growing my own vegetables, all in the quest for a great dining experience - pursuing the wow factor of fresh, tasty dishes with great flavor - all cooked at home.

I wanted to keep pursuing the fabulous home-cooked meal, as well as continue shopping in the places I love, like the farm stand and farmers market and my favorite Italian market, so I made some small changes in my shopping habits to insure that I could.

I make a weekly meal plan, then make a shopping list, stick to that shopping list (no matter how loudly the fancy cheeses are calling to me), buy store brands, and build meals around what’s on sale or in season. All simple changes that anyone can make to save money without sacrificing flavor.

My goal here is to provide recipes for meals that are flavorful, seasonally inspired, and cost-conscious, as well as to provide some entertainment with tales of farming and gardening woe that transpire here. Oh, for there is always some woe or nonsense when you raise crops and livestock.
 

My husband, JR, and I own a small farm and live in a tiny farmhouse in southeastern Massachusetts, just north of Providence, Rhode Island, and have been gardening together since 1997, raising a slew of vegetables each year, including his beloved asparagus, and my beloved tomatoes in our ever-evolving garden.

We raise our crops organically, plucking pests off of our plants by hand, which means that I crush most bugs with my fingers (ew. I know.), and toss any and all slugs found in the garden to our laying hens and to our turkeys. Mmmmm. Protein. We’ve been raising chickens since 2004, and turkeys for the last couple of years.

In early 2012, we decided to raise heritage breed pigs, and have two sows and one boar for breeding stock. All three of them will live quite contentedly here at the tiny farmhouse farm until they keel over of natural causes (I’ll probably hold funerals, too, if my current attachment level is any indication), while their offspring will be sold to other farmers for breeding or will be raised to be brought to market.

Yes, "brought to market" is a euphemism for “they will be eaten”. Such is farm life.

The Poor Girl Gourmet blog led to a book, Poor Girl Gourmet: Eat in Style on a Bare-Bones Budget, which I hope you’ll check out.

The book was published in 2010 by Andrews McMeel Publishing, and contains recipes for soups, salads, entrees, vegetables and sides, bakery items and dessert, all estimated to cost less than $15 for 4 people.

There is also a chapter of splurges, which features entrees that cost $15 to $30 for 4 people, and a chapter on lesser-known wine varietals that offer great value and interesting flavors – always good to try something other than a Chardonnay or Merlot, methinks.

In addition to being a writer and food photographer, I am a landscape and still life photographer, with a focus on Italian landscapes, florals, and coastal scenes. Some of my photography work has been licensed for use in wall art, home décor, and on notecards for Tigerprint (Hallmark UK) for sale at Marks & Spencer.

Prints and notecards of my work can be found on Etsy.

JR and I were married in Montepulciano, Italy, and we run culinary tours to the Val d’Orcia and Valdichiana each spring and fall.

Before starting Poor Girl Gourmet, I had been a broadcast producer since 1996, working on large promo and graphics packages for cable networks and news broadcasts, such as A&E, History, ESPN, Discovery, and the CBS Evening News. I still occasionally work on video/television projects, generally through production companies or broadcast agencies in the Boston area.

I am available for speaking engagements, cooking classes, and writing and photography assignments.

I’m also happy to answer any cooking, food shopping, Italian vacation planning (!!!), gardening, or farming question you have, just drop me a line at amy {at} tinyfarmhouse {dot} com.