O n a 0.45-acre property in Scottsville, Kentucky, lives Miranda Shipley Brooker, a 38-year-old micro-homesteader from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. She said she has been homesteading for six years, that she “loves being connected to the land” and that her work often revolves around taking care of the communities of animals she’s built in her front and backyard.

“For me, it’s really important how we take care of our animals and how we steward the land,” Brooker said. “I’m very interested in having closed herds, closed flocks of animals that I have personally cared for and know about their lives, so I will know everything I can about the coming generations.”

With a calculated total of 41, her animals consist of 19 meat rabbits, 18 chickens, two female goats, one guard dog and one house dog. Brooker said that she finds that when certain things happen on the homestead with these animals, it’s possible that “all plans go out the window.”

“If equipment messes up, if a greenhouse blows over, if plants freeze, if animals get sick, everything stops, and that is all you can do for that moment,” Brooker said.

Brooker values the trust that her animals have in her and the unusually close bonds they share. With being able to carry or cuddle an animal, trust is key and she describes it as being a special relationship.

Spirituality is what it all comes back to for Brooker and her connection to food. She said that she believes in the Bible as a historical and written document, adding that there’s “so much agriculture” in the Book.

Similarly, co-ministers Anne Bruce, 42, and Jeff Bruce, 44, (shown left to right) believe spirituality and food can help build community at First Christian Church in Glasgow, Kentucky. Jeff Bruce describes it as being “the absolute best experience” to lead the church alongside Anne Bruce, his wife and partner in life as well as his partner in the church.

"We’ve grown to love the people in this church, and they’ve become an extension of our family in many ways,” Jeff Bruce said. “We get to rely on each other’s strengths and help with each other’s weaknesses as a couple.”

Communion is held every time the “Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)”-denominated church comes together to worship, except for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Every Sunday, typical communion takes place where trays of bread wafers are prayed over and then passed amongst the congregation, who can also hold and pray over a plastic cup of grape juice before consumption. Jeff Bruce said that they believe in “an open table,” where all are welcome to partake.

“[Communion] pulls people together, no matter what kinds of differences that we feel like we need to put up between ourselves or among ourselves,” Anne Bruce said. “When you gather around a meal together, I think that’s where true understanding and compromise and peace and recognition of another’s humanity comes out. So, we take this meal that is so holy and so central to our faith, and we practice it every week to remind ourselves of those very things.”

Considered by some to be just as precious, the bread and juice consumed during communion at the Bruce’s church serves a symbolic function as well as nourishment. Jeff Bruce said the act itself, also referred to as “The Lord’s Supper,” serves as an opportunity to gather to remember Jesus Christ.

“For me, it shows the world — the greater community — that there is still goodness and hope and love in this world,” Anne Bruce said. “We look at it through the communion meal, through the context of the life and the death and resurrection of Jesus.”

For special services, such as Wednesday Lenten Vespers, there is communion known as “intinction” where there is a single loaf of bread and single chalice of grape juice where everyone tears off a piece and dips it into the chalice.

“One of the special things about the type of communion that we’re doing tonight [Wednesday Lenten Vesper] is that we get to see each face of each person that comes to receive communion and have that connection,” Jeff Bruce said.

Communities are being built by both the Bruces and Brooker through the quiet practice of communion and the stewardship of raising animals on a homestead. Based largely on providing for others in the form of food, these communities are built on a foundation of helping and serving those around them.

Food is a necessity, and finding some way to provide for that need allows people to help others around them. Whether taking care of friends, customers or the community as a whole, food continues to be a way to connect, as well as provide for others.

O ver the last 17 years, Joshua Poling, 40, has been working in the food industry, from attending culinary school to holding the title of executive chef to founding restaurants. Currently, he is the owner and founder of Hickory & Oak, a Bowling Green, Kentucky steakhouse that provides for its customers no matter the price.

“I realize we’re an elevated price point because of the quality of products we’re using, but I always want to make sure there’s an opportunity for everybody to walk through the door,” Poling said. “We do these barstool specials through the week, bar-top and patio only, but it’s like a $15 hamburger, or this week, it was the [$20] steak and potato special.”

A little over three years after the restaurant opened, two tornadoes struck the city and community of Bowling Green in December 2021. Poling said that after it happened, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to scream or cry, but knew he needed to do something. Serving the local community, Hickory & Oak provided $10,000 in gift cards, ultimately leading to a total of $100,000 being put out into the community by local restaurants.

“The tornado is one instance where I can think of, like, that shows we’re more than just steak,” Poling said. “We made a huge difference. We changed people’s lives. We made them feel safe. We showed them that they had a community, and we got to offer a lot of people’s meals inside this restaurant.”

Now over four years later, Poling is still running Hickory & Oak, where he said the people, whether it be the customers or the staff, are his favorite part. He said that “Bowling Green loves Hickory,” as well as that they root for the steakhouse.

“We’re blessed at Hickory, where 98% of people that walk through that door are just awesome, and they’re rooting for us so hard,” Poling said. “The staff you get to work with, the talents they have are awesome. And, you know, they become your best friends, they become your family.”

Hickory & Oak Executive Chef Tyler Anderson, 31, has been working at the restaurant since it opened in July 2018. Outside of the steakhouse though, Anderson has been working with Poling since he turned 18.

“I got a real shot to work with a real chef and an awesome person,” Anderson said. “It’s been great. He’s an awesome person, a great chef and a great mentor.”

Less than two miles away from the Hickory & Oak steakhouse lives Clara Monfette, 20, a sophomore at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Currently in her second year of dormitory life, she said that does not keep her from her passion for baking and cooking, even if it has to be in her dorm kitchen.

“Me being in here and cooking and baking, I feel like it kind of helps other people to see, like, ‘Oh, like this girl cooks and bakes. Like, it’s OK to come in here and cook and bake too,’” Monfette said. “I hope that kind of gets to people.”

While in the dorm kitchen, she said she not only makes food for herself, but can often be found making it for her friends as well. More specifically, she can often be found baking what she said is her most popular dish in which she’s made 2,000 to 3,000 of since having learned the recipe six years ago: applesauce muffins.

“These muffins have always been something I’ve always made, and when I’d bring them into school, when I was in high school, everybody would come together,” Monfette said. “And they’re like, ‘Clara, like this is why I come to school. Like, this is what makes my day.’ And it really brings everybody together.”

For Monfette, it wasn’t only the process of baking that would help relieve stress and bring positive emotions, it was also sharing the results.

“You might be having a bad day, and then here comes a 5-foot girl with a red bowl; it’s like Little Red Riding Hood in a way, like bringing in the basket of muffins,” Monfette said. “Seeing their happiness makes me happy.”

With her high school being the place where the applesauce muffins first became a hit, she said she gifted her close friends within her senior class the recipe when she graduated. Now two years later, she still makes them to this day, but it’s now for her college friends.

“Especially if Clara cooks and makes some applesauce muffins specifically, it warms my heart,” Monfette’s roommate Chelsea Herauf, 19, said.

Although she doesn’t plan to incorporate her passion for baking and cooking in her future career, Monfette said she does plan to keep the passion alive as she goes forward in life. She also said that she does foresee herself continuing to bake the applesauce muffins in the years to come.

“This is a recipe that will probably be seared into my brain, because I’ve made it so much, I’ve seen how much people love it,” Monfette said. “It will be one of those recipes I make for my kids’ friends when they come over. Like, it’s one of those recipes.”

Whether it is in a restaurant kitchen with Poling or a dorm kitchen with Monfette, they each share a passion of providing for others. With the pivotal roles of Poling’s wife and Monfette’s late father, family relationships have affected their culinary paths, no matter if for a chef or a college student.

Bonding with family also involves providing for others, but in this situation, the “others” mentioned are the ones with whom we are related. Family is found to be the cornerstone of a large portion of people’s lives, and the attachments and connections built go beyond time and can be passed down from one generation to the next.

F or Teresa Kimbel, a 70-year-old woman in Bowling Green, Kentucky, she has found that when people come together, sit around a table and share a meal, those people start to feel more like family. She said it’s the joy of being consistent, the joy of being simple and the joy of traditions shared as a family.

“We’re all bonded by food and family,” Kimbel said. “I just think that you can probably get more to a person’s heart through food than you can through conversation, and while you’re doing something side by side, you don’t look at each other, you know, and you can get to know each other a lot easier.”

While bonding with her present family through food, she also bonds with her family from the past, specifically that of her mother. Geneva Branstetter, Kimbel’s mother, passed away in December 2014 at the age of 82. She said that she was her best friend.

“I don’t need for her [Branstetter] to come back,” Kimbel said. “When somebody’s a part of you and they’re in your heart, they’re gonna live with you till you die.”

Kimbel said she and her mother were alike in many ways, that her love of entertaining and cooking for others comes from watching her mother always have an open door. Like her mother, when someone lets Kimbel know that they have a favorite dish that she cooks, she said she will make sure to always fix that when they come to visit.

“When somebody has a love of cooking, and it’s apparent,” Kimbel said. “It is apparent that you love it, and that you have mannerisms like her [Branstetter], and you cook the same meals that they cooked.”

One of these meals passed down from her mother continues to be made in Kimbel’s kitchen today. Known as the “Lazy Man’s Cobbler,” Kimbel said the dish is good, easy and that people like it. The recipe calls for a mix of ingredients including: butter, flour, sugar, milk and fruit. The recipe was written spontaneously on an envelope in her mother’s handwriting, and is something Kimbel treasures.

“I want your recipe for the cobbler, Mama,” Kimbel said.

As Kimbel carries on this love of food carried down from her mother, she recognizes that her passion began at an early age when Kimbel would often help bake cornbread and cakes for her family. Kimbel said children hold onto traditions in her family, that it is something to look forward to, and that it's the memories they have going forward.

Whether that tradition is a gathering over food, or the process of making a cobbler from scratch, Kimbel said she believes the memories left come from creating consistency and continuity for others. In addition to the ingredients that a recipe calls for, Kimbel says that she also puts in love, peace, happiness and nourishment.

Leaving the Kimbel’s household and entering into the Aldridge’s, a similar situation can be found unfolding in the kitchen, as eight daughters help their mother make breakfast in the morning. Sarah Aldridge, at 8-years-old scrambles the eggs, while her 5-year-old sister Lucy Aldridge helps prepare the strawberries. Across the kitchen, their older sister Julia Aldridge, 9, unloads the dishwasher and sets the table.

After breakfast, Sarah, Julia and Lucy (shown left to right) go to the outside deck where their “prairie kitchen" sits and “play prairie,” as their mother Ellen Aldridge, 47, describes it. They imagine making the same breakfast they just helped make and ate inside, but now outside in their own unique way in their own kitchen. The kids said the imagined food consisted of a puffed-oven pancake, eggs, strawberries, blueberry syrup and coffee.

“You don’t have to, like, go somewhere,” Sarah said, on her favorite thing about having a prairie kitchen. “You just, like, really step outside and play.”

Julia said she enjoys “being able to pretend” and “playing with the dishes” in the prairie kitchen. For Lucy, her favorite thing is playing with her sisters; she said she helps her sisters while playing with the prairie kitchen by “helping to be nice.”

The three siblings all had different dishes that they said they make the most in their prairie kitchen. For Lucy, the youngest, she said it’s green beans. For Sarah, it’s tea and coffee. Finally, for the oldest of the three, Julia said it’s eggs, bacon and the same beverage as Sarah: coffee.

As the creativity continues to flourish, they run around the yard collecting items for the “salad” shown above. Within the dish, the kids said the grass represents green beans with parsley, the mulch symbolizes roast beef, the nuts represent croutons, the carrots symbolize themselves and the leaves represent salt and pepper.

While the weather is nice outside, the kids can be found playing prairie nearly every day, according to their mother. Having grown up in the actual kitchen helping alongside her, the children can be found naturally playing this way on their own. Ellen Aldridge said she has involved the children in cooking from the time they were toddlers in some way fitting to their age and abilities, whether that be helping to set the table or stir the eggs.

“If they feel like they’re helping, then they feel like they’re a part of the family and they have a job to do,” Ellen Aldridge said. “So, that helps them feel loved and safe and secure.”

With eight sisters and one brother, the Aldridge children have normal sibling relationships but their affection for one another is felt in the relative calm of the home. Their days usually revolve around mealtimes, but the fact that the younger children choose this as their play activity shows the positive connections this family has with food as well as with each other.

Ultimately, Lucy, at only age five, said that some of her most special memories she has of making food is “cooking with Sarah and Julia,” her sisters.

In moments of these new memories made for three young sisters and old memories for Kimbel remembering her late mother, the bonds of family are what are reinforced through food. Whether it is connecting over a daily meal around the table, imaginary play or recreating a nostalgic dish, it is all what brings family together.

In the end, food remains the same thing at its core. Yes, it’s loving, sharing, building, reminiscing, providing, imagining, but it’s also much more — it’s the place where connection begins and where it will always return.