Welcome to Umami Girl
Umami Girl is your guide to a life well-lived. We are a lifestyle site for curious, thoughtful women who seek to make every day a little special and have a great time doing it. We’re brimming with real talk about the things that matter most — family, food, home, and adventure — and we hope you’ll love digging in.
Family + Life
Around here, everything starts with family. That’s true whether we’re talking about raising kids, building a better world by showing up for work every day, or fostering community, engagement, and good cheer in the virtual families we choose for ourselves. Umami Girl is all about helping you make every day a little bit special for all of your many families.
High up on the list of reasons for our recent relaunch: We desperately needed a place to showcase the talents of Umami Girl’s big, beautiful, and always-growing extended family throughout the world. We’ll be profiling lots of amazing people doing creative work that’s shaped our lives, and also wrangling some of them into contributing content to the site from time to time.
Get started by checking out this post and this one, and expect lots of growth in this content area over time.
Food
Way back in 2008, Carolyn started Umami Girl as a food blog to help members of her CSA figure out what to do with the weird-wonderful fruits and vegetables they were receiving every week. Food is at the heart of basically everything we do, and we really mean that. Back in Carolyn’s office job days, her first task in literally every brainstorming session was to silently clear the word “Pizza” from her brain before speaking (or even listening).
You can find our 10 years’ (and counting!) worth of recipes on our RECIPES page, with lots of great (but still in-progress) new filtration and search capability. This is how the recipe archives have looked in Carolyn’s brain all along, just in case you wondered.
In our food section we’ll also be featuring:
- Everyday Easy: Recipes and ideas for getting great food on the table without a lot of fuss.
- Kitchen Projects: More involved recipes and ideas to indulge your inner foodie, cook with family and friends, and play in the kitchen
- Dinner Parties: Recipes, menus, entertaining tips, playlists, and more, to help you entertain with ease and genuine joy
Home
Is there any better compliment than hearing from overnight guests that they always sleep well at your house? We love creating beautiful, cozy surroundings that help us and our loved ones relax, focus, engage, and find our way to our best selves. Look for:
- Interior Design: From whole room makeovers and house tours to tiny improvements that make a big difference
- Gardening: Carolyn loves plants and ROYALLY sucks at gardening. Stay tuned to see how this section plays out.
- Low-key DIY: We love DIY projects that add personality without requiring special skills. If we can do this, you can do this.
Adventure
Ever since the Copes lived in London from 2011-2014, family travel has been a big part of Carolyn’s idea of how to craft a life well-lived. There’s lots of travel content in this section already, with a whole lot more to come. And we’ll also be focusing on adventure that doesn’t require a passport: from favorite local haunts to city guides to helping you bring a sense of adventure to little moments in everyday life.