It really began with Thanksgiving, a couple of farm boys, their Midwest brides (that’s us), and an ever-growing passel of kids.
Our story
The idea for this cookbook was born Thanksgiving Day, 2017. As we sat together after our Thanksgiving meal, we started discussing both food and our wonderful in-law family.
From the very beginning, the Sinn family welcomed us into their lives with open hearts, open arms, and oftentimes, an open kitchen. As newlyweds and now growing families, Mom and Dad have many times given us a table to sit at, food to eat, and fellowship to enjoy. In reflecting on all that we had been given, we decided that we wanted to give something back to this family that has shown us such unconditional love.
But what could we give? What the Sinns love most is simply being together. They love to gather and to share…memories, food, thoughts and ideas. Enter the idea of a family cookbook. It would celebrate the food they share as well as memories of times they’ve spent together.
We sat on the idea for a few months, letting Christmas and the New Year celebrations pass. As spring rolled around, we sat down together to brainstorm and work through our vision, mission and guiding principles for the project.
We decided that we wanted to do this authentically, meaning making it a part of our “mom life”. So with 5 kids (between us) underfoot, the fun began. We started getting together once a week, discussing ideas and trialing recipes, with Jenna taking pictures of the process. We asked our in-laws for their old favorites and the memories behind them, hunted down family recipes, and occasionally hovered over mom in her kitchen to see just how she did something. Our kids loved the weekly “cookbook mornings” as much as we did. We ate everything we made and, appropriately, enjoyed eating it together.
The years passed, and our families grew. There were seasons of working feverishly on the cookbook and seasons where had to set it aside to focus on our families. It’s been 5 years since we started out on this adventure together, and here we are, finally seeing our cookbook (our love-gift to our Sinn family) come to fruition. So you see, it really is a part of us and our families.
And we want to share it with you, too! We now have 11 kids surrounding us as we lovingly package up and ship our cookbooks to you. They’re the next generation of Sinns, learning what is means to gather, love and share.
May you find your relationships enriched and your bodies nourished as you cook and share some of our family favorites.
Thank you for visiting!
A bit about us…
The farmwives
We were both born in the Midwest, Jenna (photo R) the daughter of a dairy farmer and Alicen (photo L) the daughter of a grain farmer. We married brothers within a year of each other, moved west to Oregon’s Willamette Valley, got settled and started our families. Thus began a wonderful sister-in-law friendship. Living just across the berry field from each other means we spend a lot of time together. Nearly every day finds our kids conniving to meet up, and we are usually only too happy to oblige. The result is cousins as close as siblings and a vibrant Christian friendship between us.
We spend our days making meals, working in the garden, wiping dirty faces, grimy hands and snotty noses, singing lullabies, practicing spelling words, reading children’s stories and trying, by God’s grace, to “train up our children in the way they should go.” Our greatest desire is that we can share the love of Jesus with others, as it has been shared by others with us.
In moments of spare time, Jenna loves to create with flowers and watercolors and dabbles in photography. Alicen enjoys creating in the kitchen, playing piano and gardening with her husband.
Jenna is married to Darwin, and they have 5 children. Alicen is married to Kenton, and they have 6 children.
The co.
Otto Sinn (Grandpa Otto) grew up on a farm in Tremont, IL. In 1950, he married Marian Kuenzi(Grammy). After living in Illinois for 7 years, they moved to Marian’s home state of Oregon and settled near her family in the Willamette Valley. Grandpa Otto started out farming wheat, oats, barley and clover. He also had about 3 acres of cherry trees that he sold for maraschino cherries.
In 1968, he bought another farmstead that was right down the road, and he moved his family to the house which in time became where Mom and Dad raised their family and still reside. Shortly thereafter, his Multiple Sclerosis forced him to stop farming, and he began renting out his farmground until Uncle Don and Dad started farming it in 1974 and 1976, after their high school graduations. Dad and Uncle Don started raising hogs as well as farming the same crops that their dad farmed until 1982, when they planted their first 4 acres of Marionberries. In 1985, they quit raising hogs and planted strawberries.
Over the years, they farmed a variety of row crops, including onions and cauliflower. In 1989, they planted their first 10 acres of blueberries. As time went on, they phased out of annual crops and went into full time berry production. Now in 2023, 6 of Dad’s 7 sons are involved in some capacity on the farm or at the fresh berry packing facility, with the expectation that in time, it will be all 7. And with incoming grandsons, there is soon to be a fourth generation of hardworking farmers loving their land, working together, and gathering the bounty God has blessed so abundantly.
Our Farm
