Getting to Know Olivia

            Olivia Coons was born loving the four walls of a kitchen.  She grew up learning how to cook while underfoot of her mother whether it was weekly dinner, or a special holiday meal.  Starting at the age of 10, Olivia began growing an herb garden with nearly 40 different types of herbs.  She soon began collecting snippets of recipes from newspapers, magazines, and about anywhere else she could find them.  Kitchen gadgets started appearing on Olivia’s Christmas lists, along with William Sonoma cookbooks.  At the end of her sophomore year of high school, Olivia was the youngest person accepted to the third ranked culinary school in the nation.  Olivia’s love of cooking has been life-long to say the least.  While she decided to pursue schooling and a career in education, she still enjoys cooking for her husband, her family, and her friends.  Olivia rarely meets a recipe she isn’t excited about collecting, trying, and sharing.  She also loves preserve food by canning, via both the water bath and pressure methods, and freezing.  She currently is embarking on a “back to the basics” portion of her recipe collection where she is striving to make basic kitchen staples that she long took for granted whether in the grocery store or restaurant setting.

            Olivia resides in northern Indiana.  She has been married for one year to her husband Dan.  They have one beloved pet, Annie, a mixed lab, retriever, and collie.  Olivia teaches middle school and also enjoys expressing her creativity through scrapbooking and card making.  She is a demonstrator for Stampin’ Up!, a home-based scrapbooking and card making supply company.    In the summer, you can most likely find Olivia in her garden, tending to both vegetables and flowers.  Many of the garden’s veggies end up in the canning recipes Olivia undertakes in the summer.  Olivia’s family is very important to her, and she enjoys spending lots of time with them!  She and her husband attend St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in the town they reside in as well.

            Expressing creativity through teaching, cooking, card making, and other various forms, is important to Olivia.  She welcomes questions and comments either here on the blog, or via e-mail at: chickensoupforthebowl@live.com