And tastybyma is my little corner of the internet!
I launched tastybyma in March 2018 while I was still working night shifts as a registered nurse in downtown Austin. Between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. I’d scroll through food blogs, jot down ideas on a yellow legal pad, and dream about turning those scribbles into real recipes. One rainy Thursday I finally uploaded my first post – a simple honey‑lime chicken that got 1,200 page views in the first week. I never imagined that a side‑hustle would become a full‑time love.
Fast‑forward to today, tastybyma reaches about 45,000 unique visitors each month and has a mailing list of 12,800 food‑enthusiasts who get my weekly “Kitchen Minute” roundup. In 2022 I added a video series on YouTube, which now sits at 210,000 subscribers, and I started a quarterly e‑cookbook that has sold over 4,000 copies. The site has grown from a single‑column blog into a small community where readers share their own twists on my dishes, post photos, and even suggest new ideas that I test in my tiny home kitchen.
I live in a modest bungalow in the East Austin neighborhood with my husband, Marco, and our two rescue cats, Basil and Juniper. When I’m not whisking together a new sauce or answering reader questions, you’ll find me hiking the Hill Country trails, hunting for the perfect mango at the local farmer’s market, or curled up with a good mystery novel. My favorite kitchen tools are a 10‑inch cast‑iron skillet, a hand‑crank coffee grinder, and a well‑worn wooden spoon that’s been with me since the first recipe.
One quirky habit I’ve kept since day one is to write each new recipe on a postcard and mail it to a friend in another state. It reminds me that food is still the most personal way to stay connected, no matter how many clicks our site gets.