Welcome! I'm so glad you're here.
I started Ovenspiration in 2019, the year I retired from my real job and had to figure out what to do with all that extra time. Turns out the answer was right in front of me: cooking, testing, and finally writing down the recipes I'd been collecting and tweaking for over 45 years.
Before I was writing recipes, I spent my career working in a medical laboratory. I still catch myself treating recipe development the same way I treated lab work: form a hypothesis, run the test, change one variable at a time, and write down what actually happened. Butter is always a variable worth testing twice.
For all of us, how and what we cook evolves as we move through the stages of life. I've been a young single woman figuring out how to feed myself. I've been a mom of two, running the calendar for two kids' worth of sports and school while working full time and never quite knowing what was for dinner until 4:30. I've watched that house empty out, and now I'm retired and cooking for the fun of it again, with two grandkids who love to help when they visit.
Wherever you are right now, I've probably been there too. That's really what this site is for.
Ovenspiration is old-fashioned comfort food, the kind your mom or grandma made, updated for how people actually cook now. And sometimes I use a shortcut or a convenience item, as long as the dish still tastes right. Every recipe here has been made more than once in my own kitchen, and I test the ingredient swaps too, so if you're missing something, you're not stuck. Whether you're cooking for two or feeding a crowd on game day, there's something here for your table.
A few things I believe, for the record: There's no such thing as too much cheese. Chocolate deserves its own food group. And homemade beats restaurant food.
Grab a recipe, poke around, and stay a while. And if you want the full story on who's actually testing all these recipes, meet Sula here.
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