Update: Unfortunately, Yesterday’s Kitchen Today is now closed. Please support Coweta businesses to prevent the loss of area businesses.
As soon as we walked in the door of Yesterday’s Kitchen 4 Today, the warm smell of freshly baked bread enveloped us and made our mouths water.
Yesterday’s Kitchen is a brand new shop located in a cute house past the square on Jefferson Street. The store is stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables, goat’s milk, whole grains and a variety of appliances.
This shop is about much more than the items that line the shelves. It’s about a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.
Owner, Marsha Thadison is a sincere, passionate woman who truly believes in the power of food to heal or sicken.
Up until recently, the food people consumed was virtually unprocessed and came from healthy farm animals.
The methods people used to preserve and store extra food, such as fermenting, often increased nutrition and added probiotics that support gut health.
These traditional methods of farming and food preparation suddenly changed as chemical preservatives and corporate farming practices took over.
This is especially apparent in the mushy, white loaves of bread that have almost no resemblance to a loaf freshly baked with whole grains.
Marsha explained to us that farmers began separating the grain and feeding the nutritious parts to the cattle. In order to compensate for the lack of nutrition, manufacturers would add vitamins back to the bread.
The result was bread that lacked fiber and could not compete with the vitamins and mineral content of unprocessed whole grains, as well as cattle that were ill from a diet that does not suit their digestive system.
This cheap method of grain processing is making both people and animals sick.
Marsha points out that low and no income families suffer the most.
She began researching the increasingly unethical practices of big farming corporations and seed companies around ten years ago.
She was outraged by what she learned. These companies were covering up problems, patenting seeds, and pumping their animals full of hormones and antibiotics.
Her heavy research led her to the conclusion that food and health are inseparable and eating well is attainable for any income level. Yesterday’s Kitchen 4 Today operates on these beliefs.
Marsha has found that eating well does not have to be expensive. The process begins with whole foods and smart preparation and storage.
The shelves of Yesterday’s Kitchen are stocked with a bounty of grains in different shades of gold.
Marsha sells these grains in bulk, as well as smaller portions. The whole grains can be milled immediately to make bread, pizza dough, cookies, waffles or anything grain based or it can be stored. If properly prepared, the grains will keep for decades.
Marsha loves to bake using whole grains. We were delighted to sample some of her spelt bread and homemade strawberry honey jam. The bread was rich and deeply flavored. It doesn’t even compare to store bought whole grain bread.
The bread and jam were both made in one of the bread makers stocked in Yesterday’s Kitchen. The store has a variety of tools that are versatile and useful for turning whole ingredients into nutritious foods.
Marsha’s true passion is teaching the next generation how to be self sufficient and healthy. She believes that health begins and ends with food. With nutritious food, there is a decline in chronic diseases such as diabetes, gout and heart disease.
Yesterday’s Kitchen hosts frequent workshops aimed at teaching food health from saving seeds to fermenting produce. They also have yogurt makers, ice cream makers, grain mills, bread makers and several more appliances.
In addition to fresh food and whole grains, Yesterday’s Kitchen has heirloom seeds, educational books, Himalayan salt, military grade food storage bags, and much more.
The shop is open every day except Saturdays. You can find out about upcoming workshops and classes on the Yesterday’s Facebook page or follow them on Twitter.
We highly recommend that you stop in at the shop. You may be lucky enough to get there just as some fresh bread or waffles are done!