About me

Hi.  My name is Justina.  Thanks for visiting my page.  I am not currently active on my blog but am active on Instagram and would love to meet you.  Please visit my Instagram profile at: https://www.instagram.com/onedomesticgoddess/

Proudly displaying my apple pie at my parents’ house

I also love to entertain.  When my guests are enjoying themselves I am at my happiest; second to being in the kitchen of course.

I didn’t always love being in the kitchen. In fact, the kitchen was not the heart of our home growing up; instead the local truck stop (yes, I grew up in a town where the best place to eat is always the truck stop), grandma’s living room, or out for a drive in the country is where we spent most of our time with family.

Although I am envious of cooks with a large selection of family recipes and family traditions in the kitchen, I don’t begrudge my upbringing since we were always together.  Instead I want to create my own heritage in the kitchen and share it with my family and friends.  I often volunteer to cook for gatherings and when I visited my parents for Thanksgiving my mom couldn’t stop bragging to her friend what a wonderful meal I had created.

I started this blog in February 2012.  It was almost a year into a new job in my profession that was very hectic and stressful.  I devoted many hours to the job initially and found that creating good food was something that I could not put aside for the sake of building a career. Although I cooked throughout my studies of engineering, I felt that the creative outlet was often overlooked due to the necessity of keeping up with classes.

When I started the blog, I had just returned home from a brunch at my friends art studio.  I was describing to my neighbor and close friend the egg strata that my friends had delighted in and my neighbor jokingly called me a domestic goddess.  I had played with the idea of starting a food blog for some time and the name One Domestic Goddess just struck a cord.  I had my name and could start blogging.

I knew that a food blog needed pictures, so I quickly went out and purchased a Cannon Powershot A3300 IS and set up my blog.  I am now using a Cannon 4ti, but I can attest that it is the person behind the camera that gets good shots.

Just six months into my blog, I wanted to celebrate this new found love by throwing a party of sorts in our back yard that would be ran like a restaurant.  I had two seating options with a full service menu and live music.  It was a big undertaking, but was so rewarding.

Through this experience, I learned that when you share your connection with food it makes relationships stronger and helps to build community.  I have since made more connections in my community, learned about the local food movement, and discovered a few great organic farmers in our city.  One amazing opportunity last May was an Earth Day celebration Farm to Table dinner hosted by a local catering company that hosts amazing parties.

In November, I left my engineering job to explore culinary pursuits and see where my love for food may take me.  I have really been enjoying this space; cooking, going to farmer’s markets during the day, meeting up with friends randomly, and volunteering at my church.  It has really been a gift to have this time to explore, read books and travel.

A little more about me:

• I grew up in Arizona but moved to Kansas in high school.  No matter where you are from, no one likes Wizard of Oz jokes. 🙂
• I now live in Long Beach and I love Southern California, even sometimes the traffic.
• Generally I eat healthy, but I always gravitate to butter in baked goods.
• My favorite place in the world is a coffee shop or cafe, I can find a favorite in every town.
• As of late I am cooking more with grains like quinoa, barley, and farro and I love sauteing greens with fresh herbs.