After several roller coaster years of creating The Jelly Queens, a little organic jelly and jam company, that has won over 42 world awards, I am very clear that it really does give me a voice. The Jelly Queens and I get to be a voice for all good things, especially food. Good, sustainably grown, farmer-friendly, local, organic, healing food! And Texas, home of The Jelly Queens, is a hot, juicy bed for sustainable agriculture and exceptional cooking! So how did I get myself into this, you might ask when all I was aiming for was a little hobby?

It all started with FOX’s, mega-hit cooking show, MasterChef. 

39,000 people auditioned and 100 were chosen, including me, to battle it out to become the second season’s winner. Believe it or not, at the end of the show some amazing friendships were formed.

And on a crisp fall evening, about six months after the show wrapped, seven of us gathered to make dinner for 200 people at one of the most beautiful homes in Dallas. I knew being on

MasterChef was gonna change my life, but dinner that night created a wave that has not stopped rolling. I call it the jelly roll – we are on a jelly roll. The Jelly Queens since that day has changed, morphed and grown.

I could even say it has taken on a life of its own. 

One of my mentors said to me, “Be prepared, people will come and go, there will be ups and downs, but it will be a great adventure. It will take as many as 10 partners, 10 times to get it right, 10 incarnations, some will be good and some will be bad, some will give and some will take, but each incarnation will better than the next. Stay the course because you are spot on, keep your eye on creating a wave of delicious conscious awakening.”

And he was right, partners have come and gone, friendships made and lost, but the concepts, brainstorming, and devotion to goodness have been nonstop. Just like our recipes, there are lots of ingredients, people, places, things, times and events that have contributed to The Jelly Queens creation. I knew from the very beginning that change was part of creation. What I did not know was how much I would love each incarnation of The Jelly Queens, (even the ones that included hard lessons, maybe those are the best), or how much I wanted each to be “The One,” or how hard it would be to let things go, or how each lesson, trial, and tribulation would teach me about what I really want and who I really want to share this process with…or how much I would love and wish blessings on those who have walked with me