About

Hi, I’m Stephanie (Steph for short). I’m the cook, photographer, techie, designer, and recipe writer here at Sustaining the Powers. Thanks for stopping by to check out my site and find out more about me!

Stephanie and Nick Powers - Sustaining the Powers

I was born in the awesome city of Austin, TX (Yep, I’m a real Austinite), and moved to Fort Collins, Colorado in August 2005 to go to school at CSU. My hubby, Nick, and I met in the computer lab in the engineering building there. He was studying on the other side of a lab station and I cracked a joke to break the ice. We accidentally went on a date the next day (I didn’t expect him to buy me lunch), and then I told him I wouldn’t officially date him on 4 different occasions over the next year and a half before finally agreeing to go out with him. We got engaged just 4 months later (though he’d had the ring for 6 months at this point – ha!) and we were married within a year in January 2011. We moved to downtown Denver in 2012, bought a house, and now really love showing hospitality to our friends and family by having people in our home. This blog was born out of a desire to share my recipes and virtual hospitality with others.

Here’s some F.A.Qs and their answers:

Q: How did you decide on the title of your blog?

A: I went through a lot of iterations of the name because naming a blog is a big deal. It came down to Chef Steph, Tex-Mex & Turmeric, or Sustaining the Powers.

Chef Steph was taken, so it got crossed off the list (plus I’m not actually a chef – see the next question).

Tex-Mex & Turmeric was a bit hard to spell and style (a hyphen and an ampersand gets tricky pretty quickly). I was going for alliteration, and trying to play off of the little bit of Texas and little bit of everywhere else that inspires my recipes, but it seemed like it would define my niche a little smaller than I was hoping for. Especially if I ever decided to branch out into lifestyle/mommy blogging once we grow our family.

So, Sustaining the Powers it is! My name is Stephanie Powers, and I really love the last name of Powers that I married into. (Thanks Hubby!) Sustaining is as in sustenance (aka food), but it’s also a reference to everything that sustains our family – our home, our faith, our marriage, etc. so it seemed like I could branch out if I decided to in the future without changing my blog name. Plus SP are my initials, the initials of my blog, and salt and pepper, so that’s how my logo was decided on as well. As a bonus, there weren’t any other names like it on the internet, so I didn’t have to worry about infringing on intellectual property rights, brand confusion, or fighting over user names.

Q: Are you a chef?

A: I am by no means a trained chef. I’m just a home cook who’s not afraid to experiment and make up a recipe here and there. I pick up foods and skills here and there as I experiment, read blogs and cookbooks, and cook with other people. The daily meals in our home are a reflection of our travels and adventures, so it tends to sample many different cuisines. I grew up in Austin, Texas so Tex-Mex and comfort food have a huge influence on my cooking, but I also love Central American, Moroccan, Italian, Asian, and Spanish foods among many others.

Q: Why do you blog?

A: Well, there’s many reasons but my top 5 are:

I love cooking. Growing up, we came together around the dinner table each night and my mom always encouraged us to help out or take responsibility for a family dinner once a week. This stuck with me, and now that I have my own place and family I still love hosting family-style dinners for our friends. Cooking is my unwind.
I love experimenting with flavors and new ingredients. Sometimes our kitchen looks like an episode of Chopped where I end up throwing random ingredients together into something never seen before. Other times, I take existing recipes and make crazy substitutions based on what I have on hand.
I enjoy photography. I’m definitely a hobbyist photographer, but food blogging gives me a place to practice my photography on a regular basis and I will hopefully learn and grow a lot more. My Flickr account is here if you want to see other photos I’ve taken.
I enjoy writing. I blogged my summer trip to Italy and Spain and found that I really liked writing on a regular basis. It’s a great creative outlet for me and I think others enjoyed reading it.
I love sharing with others. In Fort Collins I used to have a weekly girls night where I’d teach a new recipe to some of my newly-married friends. We had such a blast! I have also regularly posted photos on Facebook and been asked to share the recipes. This gives me a more formal platform to share our family favorites (and those who kept suggesting it can stop bugging me to start a blog now.)

Q: What’s your goal with this blog?

A: I want to empower and inspire others in the kitchen and their homes. I want to document and share my food ideas and recipes with others and also maybe talk a bit about what else sustains our family – our faith, our home organization, our budget and shopping habits, our hobbies, and our friends and family. Most of all, I want to have fun!

Q:What do you do besides cook?

a: Well, I clean, dust, vacuum, shop for food…. Okay KIDDING! When I’m not creating something in the kitchen or here on my laptop, I love to cuddle on the couch with my husband to watch TV shows and eat kettle corn. I also love to craft things for our house – I’m mostly in to quilting, digital scrapbooking and photography (of things besides just food), but I’ve been known to paint or refinish things every now and then. I used to swing dance nearly every night, but hubby goes to bed early and I feel bad being out until 2 am without him, so it’s become a once every few months kind of adventure.

Work-wise, I’m a math tutor and advisor for a local university here in Denver. If you need some Math help, I’m your girl!

Want to know more? Check out my interview for The Liebster Award

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