Back to her Roots

Her family's fourth-generation farm in New England beckoned this food blogger home to grow, cook and create with the seasons.

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In Salem, New Hampshire, food blogger Liz Harris is ready for what she labels "orange food season." Right now, Liz's favorite harvest hue graces her soup pot in the form of fresh-picked butternut squash, sweet potato, carrot, and pumpkin from her family's century-old farm in Salem, New Hampshire.

Liz is also all-in for apple picking, pie making, hiking to see foliage, and even raking leaves. She loves the crisp shift of the seasons and the nostalgia surrounding it—“growing up in New England, I think you kind of have to!" she says, laughing. "These were things I missed dearly when I lived on the West Coast."

Back then, Liz was a scientist specializing in cancer biology. But in 2012 she made the tough decision to leave the research bench and pursue a career in food. From her teeny floating home in Seattle, she started to share her recipes and photography on her website, Floating Kitchen.

"My kitchen, and everything else, literally did float," she says, still wistful for the calm that came with waking up on the water. “I loved taking the time each morning to have my coffee out on the dock-that is, of course, when it wasn't raining!”

She has left the houseboat life behind but is still cooking up a storm-now with produce from Donabedian Bros., her family's small farm and hydroponic greenhouse that has delivered fruits and vegetables to the Salem community since the early 1900s. "It's been in our family for more than 100 years," she says. "And I now work there one or two days a week as well.