Welcome to our kitchen!
We are Jessica and Merissa aka Jess and Riss. Sisters, best friends & business partners. We are the creators of this site “The Teary Onion” (Want to read more about the name?) Our goal is to create delicious recipes that are as tantalizing to look at as they are to eat!
We love making all kinds of dishes from super simple to beautifully plated, fine dining. And we love our dessert! We always say “We decided what we’re making for dessert, now what are we making for dinner?”
We are the oldest two out of 12 kids. Our parents must be crazy haha! No, they are awesome! To us family is everything. We grew up on a rural farm in Nevada with a small community of about 50-100 people (before Amazon Prime haha) where we went grocery shopping once a month, sometimes less. So we had to make a lot of things from scratch which we discovered tasted a lot better anyway. We try to use as many whole ingredients as possible. We believe that eating more wholesome does not have to be boring! You can check out our sister site Whole Wheat Kitchen where we share recipes for whole grain baking.
A little about Riss
Hey! First of all I want to say thank you for being here and, I hope you find something to dazzle your tastebuds! I have always had a fascination with cooking. Some of my favorite memories are helping my Dad make brownies and then licking the spoon. That’s the best part of baking right?:)
When I was 7 years old I had a head injury so my memory before that time is a little vague. But I do remember the first meal I made. I was around 5 years old. I asked my Mom if I could make lunch. She said yes, thinking I wouldn’t do it. I ran into the kitchen and decided to make sandwiches. I remember wondering why it took me so long when Mom could make them in seconds. She has a picture of me proudly presenting sandwiches with cheese I sliced myself albeit 1/2” thick haha.
A few of my hobbies outside the kitchen include music, gardening and, spending time with the love of my life (Aaron). I taught myself, with a little help from my Mom the piano and I love playing but, am terrified of playing for people. I love flowers of all kinds and nature. If I had a pet it would probably be a fish:)
Family is always priority to me and they are my closest friends.
A little about Jess
Hi my fellow food lovers! I’m Jessica aka Jess! I’m the oldest of 12 kids. I was basically born a princess, my mom dressed me in frills and lace from the day I was born and my dad had high expectations. From the moment I could I walked myself around. The combination has made me a great big sister, good at taking charge of a situation, but also able to listen and help others.
My dad is a farmer/rancher/truck driver so I’ve learned to do it all. As I’ve grown I’ve become a princess in cowboy boots! I love dogs, daisies, and trucks, you know the ones with all the after market accessories!
My mom has always been home with us kids, she’s taught us the basics of life including cooking, which has become a huge favorite in our house. My earliest memories of cooking on my own are trying to surprise my parents with breakfast in bed. It was a chore for a 7 year old to keep her siblings quiet and make breakfast. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t ever not burn the eggs. We would assemble our makings on cookie sheets, burnt eggs and all to proudly present to our parents. Being the sweet people that they are they never complained about the burnt eggs. From there our love of cooking has brought us all together many times for home cooked meals, to where we are today, sharing recipes with you. We hope you love sitting down to a home cooked meal as much as we do.
Inspiration for the name of this site
Riss talking, We grew a lot of potatoes every year on our farm. One year some geniuses decided to try growing onions. A. Lot. Of. Onions. Like 120 acres of onions. Weeeelll they didn’t do so good. We harvested them and put them in storage to sort throughout the winter like we did the potatoes. Jess and I were part of the crew that got to sort through a lot of slimy, rotten, stinky (as if they don’t smell bad enough already) onions. After the boss’s decided it wasn’t worth trying to salvage them, they hauled them out into a pile on the outskirts of the farm and let’s just say it was a few months before the air was fresh!
I refused to touch onions and had a personal hate relationship with them after that but, when I started getting serious about my cooking skills I sadly realized they play an important role in tasty dishes, sooooo… despite my pride and loathing I started incorporating them into my food. Even though it feels like I’m loosing a piece of my soul every time I do haha jk. And they do make me cry. Anyway, that’s how we came up with the name.