Huntsteader Heart & Mission

Hello! I’m Steph and so excited to welcome you to “Huntsteader,” a blog born out of my passion for fueling my body with nourishing food. I spent a large amount of time in my 20s and 30s under a lot of stress from work. For 15+ years I worked in the corporate world and still do, part-time. I spent many years as the HR lead on senior executive teams. I had amazing colleagues, a few bad-apple colleagues, and definately experienced high-stress work environments. I didn’t always make the best food choices, I’ve ordered my share of skip-the-dishes and hit up McDonald’s on the way home from a stressful day. 

I remember working my first HR job in my 20’s and feeling exhausted all the time. I constantly wondered, “Why am I so tired all the time?” One morning I was drinking my coffee and eating my cereal. I was in the middle my early morning prayer and journal time and felt a still small voice say, “Eat Living Food.” Call it intuition, I call it the Holy Spirit. This insight totally transformed my food choices. I remember looking down at my cereal that day and thinking, yeah that food looks dead. I put down the cereal forever. This started the journey that I’m still on, to eat real whole foods prepared the ancestral way. 

The beginning of my journey was hilarious when I look back on it now. I jumped on every food trend that I saw online. I remember during the “kale” craze I drank all kinds of kale smoothies, added kale to oatmeal and experimented with kale banana bread! My husband laughed and passed on a lot of my experiments. He never knew what was coming up next in the kitchen. In the beginning I honestly believed that healthy food wasn’t supposed to taste as good a processed food. As my whole foods journey continued, this belief turned out to be wrong.

I came across the work of Sally Fallon and her book, “Nourishing Traditions.” This book made me passionate about cultured food, fermented foods and bone broth. I started making yogurt in my oven, fermenting foods and started embracing traditional foods that taste good like gravy again. I was terrible at following recipes. My first attempt at bone broth failed and went extremely rancid. Once I mastered the broth I used to make the worst soups with my homemade bone broth. I didn’t understand spice combinations so I’d add spices that didn’t taste good together and then I’d try to fix that problem by adding more spices until it was pretty much inedible. I’d puree a bunch of vegetables into the soup until it was so thick that you couldn’t call it soup anymore. My husband would come home hungry and I’d dish him up bowls of inedible adult babyfood. We can laugh about this now. 

Growing up, I’d always enjoyed wild game but refused to go hunting with dad. The joke was that I’d warn the deer to run away. I realize now that I didn’t understand what hunting is really all about back then, which is time outdoors. This ironic because I absolutely love the outdoors. My husband decided to go on a hunt with my dad in 2015 as a way to bond with him. About 2 hours into his first hunt my husband got a whitetail deer bigger than any whitetail my dad has gotten in his long and successful hunting career. Talk about beginners luck, my husband was officially hooked. He kept encouraging me to give hunting a try. He said I’d enjoy it because I love the outdoors. Well, he was right about that. We’ve enjoyed about 8 years of freezers full of wild game including moose, deer, bear, ducks and geese. 

I’ve had my fair share of failed attempts at urban gardening. I like to think of it as failing forward. I learned from each failure and eventually it led to success. Today, I am absolutely passionate about my indoor and outdoor gardens. I also ferment, dehydrate, can and pressure can my garden harvest to help fill my shelves with wholesome food. 

So, what is the mission of “Hunsteader”? I want to help people like you remove processed foods from your homes, one step at a time. You might face challenges similar to mine such as not knowing how to cook, juggling a busy 9-5 job or not having any outdoor area for a garden. I have developed systems, tips and tricks to help you succeed in building a more sustainable and less processed kitchen. In a world that seeks convenience, I like to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty. The results are delicious and oh so nourishing. 

Welcome as we dig in, get messy, and rediscover food the ancestral way. Thank you for being here, and I can’t wait to share this exciting adventure with you. 

With gratitude,

Stephanie Serblowski