M. Atherton Baber Studio-Workshop

10/25/2024

A million thanks to Scott Hagerman and the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer newspaper for this dynamite FRONT PAGE feature!

And thank you, thank you to EVERY ONE who’s read the article and expressed SUCH generous, heartfelt support AND EVERY ONE who helps me succeed.

Whether you send words of encouragement, mentor my business, help edit my content, take my classes, watch me on social media, and on, and on, YOU are MANY; and I literally could not do what I do without EACH of YOU! 🙏

We grow TOGETHER, don’t we, friends?

Happy weekend! Why not DO something that makes YOUR heart sing? xx

10/18/2024

Particularly if the only floristry you’ve yet known derives from some clapped out shop, come with me because there’s a vast world more to find.

When we get it right, great floristry is one of the universe’s perfect poems, held in our hands, beheld by our senses, indeed inhaled to animate and change our very minds and bodies.

When I went into the garden yesterday, I was exhausted, and should’ve been working at my desk, but I needed to fill an order. Frost had already claimed most of my choicest materials. My hands and feet were cracked and bleeding, my whole person lumbering under the hectic season’s heft and duration.

But, stem by stem, a snip of the secateurs, a pull of the knife, mining unexpected bits and pieces, I thought, “Trust the garden.” And, leaf by bloom, the magic began…

By the time I harvested every viable morsel, I had a powerful portrait of season and place, and I hope you enjoy seeing it, here, as much as I delight in sharing it with you.

In fact, if this resonates with you, please give it a like, share it with a friend, and be sure you follow my account, if you don’t already.

Whether you’re an experienced hand, brand new to gardening, or watch for inspiration and community, you are most welcome here. Let’s grow together!

Winter is coming, and it’s a fine time to settle in and learn something new. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll join me in looking around to LOVE what’s great NOW, wherever you are in the world. It’s fun, free, and the very stuff of LIFE!

Happy Fall. Happy weekend. I’ll see you soon, friends. xx

10/06/2024

Hello and happy weekend with a rare-for-me weekend post!

How are we already thinking about the holidays? Well, the time to plan is here, and with Halloween barely a month away, NOW is the time to organize for the kinds and quality of snacks that just might save your celebrations.

Just touch the picture to pop over to Instagram, and watch this first episode in my short series on snack mixes. If you find it helpful, please give it a like, share it with friends, and come back for the second episode next week.

Better yet, follow me while you're there. It’s the main place where I post my daily content AND special features, like this, too (and we have an AWFULLY good time, so I hope you’ll join the party).

I'll see you there--ENJOY!

Send a message to learn more

10/01/2024

When I die, I’m going to lie in my casket pleasingly plump, and no one will care less than me about a little fat around my middle!

Why? Pleasure, while I was living to enjoy it!

Top of that list, to me—and, I suspect many of you—is great BREAD, quite preferably with EXCELLENT butter, and I eat it with unflinching elation!

I also serve bread BEAUTIFULLY and hope you do too. So, I’ve shown you HOW I do it—three different tacks, in fact—in a new film on YouTube.

Just pop over to YouTube, find my channel at mathertonbaber, and watch the film called ‘Matthew Entertains: Bread Service.”

Biscuits or rolls, warm or room temperature, sliced loaves, mixed assortments, on dining tables or buffets, using whatever furnishings you have on-hand, I show you how I’ve done it for VVIP and A-List guests, still do it today, and YOU can too!

Watch to the end to see one of my family’s most cherished regional ingredients that is most traditionally eaten with our various breads (and MY WORD, it’s delicious)!

See you there!

09/17/2024

NEW FILM ON YOUTUBE!

If you love great Southern biscuits, this is your guide to making them excellently and easily, with gorgeously buttery, flaky, pastry-like layers EVERY time (you can even make them ahead)!

If you don’t love biscuits yet, this is your time to learn more about them, try making a few of your own, and discover YOUR next best bite in the great—and greatly storied—American Southern biscuit, a real taste of my region through history AND now!

You know how to find me on YouTube. To watch, just search for mathertonbaber, select my channel, and click ‘Matthew Makes: Biscuits’—easy as that (and I’ve shared a few beautiful biscuit tales too).

As always, written recipes with all the specific details are on my website at mathertonbaber.com/blog.

I’ll see YOU there (they’re AWFULLY good—come along)!

09/05/2024

What’s more opulent than a sweet and juicy peach, sun-ripened right on the tree and picked at utter prime, with salivating anticipation?

It’s about the end of peach season here, but many of you still have peaches in glorious bounty. So, I’ve proposed an idea to evoke peaches’ intense natural flavor, quickly and easily, and my method teaches you a handful of universally useful cooking skills as you use them—namely, evaluating and adjusting as you go (helpful in cooking AND life)!

Check out my new film on YouTube and companion blog article, posted to my website, linked in bio, where you’ll find a morsel of philosophy too.

See you there, and please let me know your thoughts in comments, likes, and shares. This tantalizing taste really is too good to miss (or keep to ourselves)!

Here in The South, we might even say, as highest praise for a sublimely delicious dish, with no violent intent whatsoever, it tastes so good it’ll “make ya slap your mamma down!”

09/02/2024

Happy Monday, all, and happy Labor Day, to all those celebrating today!

As I too pause for a quiet rest, how about this view from the weekend!?!

…and what a floristry weekend it was! Once in a great while, all the stars align, every ingredient is utter perfection, the roses are especially heady with evocative fragrance, each leaf of foliage is lush, nothing slips or tears, the weather is ideal, and the little girl sitting in the front row sees the flowers, gasps with sheer uninhibited delight, giggles with epiphanic realization, and, in the fizz of her laugh and twinkle of her sparkling eyes, another life-long flower lover is born!

All that and more happened here this weekend, and I thank EVERYONE involved, particularly all who have sent SUCH lovely messages about the flowers and what seeing them meant to you.

People from a VAST range of views and stages of life came together in an experience of unity and shared bliss, and THAT, dear friends and followers, is what our gardens and their produce give us!

Our zucchini or Dahlias last mere moments, but their impact and our memories of them live on. And whether we’re involved for pleasure, profit, or both, WE lucky gardeners have a front row seat to A LOT of the cooperation, goodness, and GROWTH this life offers us all, equally, in a too often frenetic, clanging world.

Cheers to the great moments and victories, friends. May YOUR week have a few of them too, and may we celebrate our successes TOGETHER, for NONE of us do it alone!