You may have heard me say before that having a little farm has been my dream life since I was literally like 4-years-old. I’d be lying if I told you Husband had the same dream early on. While I loved to groom and tend to animals and muck stalls, Husband loved to cook. We have pictures of him helping out in the kitchen from age 3 on. He has always loved everything there is to do with food, so when he joked one afternoon when we were sophomores in college that he should have his own cooking show, that’s what we did. It seemed like a no brainer. I got out my digital camera and started filming him making our dinners to put on YouTube. We called it, Cookin’ For College. His passion for food and cooking was contagious. With a little promotion and a primitive Google website, word quickly spread about our little, informal cooking show.
Cookin’ For College featured easy and budget-friendly recipes. We found a niche in college students who were hungry for the knowledge of how to effectively feed themselves without depending solely on ramen noodles. Husband (who was then Boyfriend) was the host. I was the camera/editing crew, website developer, content creator, director and PR manager. College newspapers across the country featured articles on Cookin’ For College. The Athens Banner Herald featured their article of us on the front page. He did phone interviews, skype interviews, an on-set filmed feature in New York on Fox News’ Fox and Friends morning show and was a guest on Food Network’s Paula’s Best Dishes with Paula Deen. We were just messing around honestly, but it took off like wildfire, took-of like 2010 took-off not like 2018 took-off. I think the YouTube channel still only has like 5,000 hits, but back then, we were a “YouTube sensation.”
[ The videos are still live. If you’d like a little laugh, check em’ out here. ]
Phone interviews, television interviews, people asking him for autographs, Fox News flying us to New York City, a spot on a Food Network show… It was crazy and surreal. We never made any money off of Cookin’ For College, but we made a lot of memories and priceless experiences. Cookin’ For College made me change my major junior year of college from Art History to Public Relations. I didn’t even have the GPA to get into the PR program, but luckily they take into account real life experiences. At 20 years old, my experiences were a little ahead of my peers. It got Husband his career in food. His boss saw the videos, thought he had gumption and gave him a shot. Thankfully, that shot has turned into 5 years of selling food, and he couldn’t be happier.
Fox News’ Fox & Friends After After Show feat. Cookin’ For College: http://video.foxnews.com/v/4145692/?#sp=show-clips
It’s crazy how life turns out. We could have never imagined Cookin’ For College’s success let alone how it shaped the rest of our lives. People still ask us about it. Husband still cooks for us every night. Only now the ingredients are a little fresher and the cost isn’t priced down to the dime, both of which have resulted in better quality meals. 😝 I share his recipes on here now. We’ve combined both of our individual dreams into one, mighty dream, our Homestead.
thehomesteadkings.com 