Sophia Nguyen Eng is a first-generation Vietnamese-American who left a successful career in growth marketing in Silicon Valley to start a five-acre permaculture farm in the Appalachian region of eastern Tennessee.
A sought-after speaker, she has presented at Google HQ, GrowthHackers, and the global SaaStalk tech conferences. Now she draws on her experiences speaking on stage and her knowledge of food, farming, and health to present at homesteading conferences. She is also a Weston A. Price Chapter Leader and the founder of the website Sprinkle with Soil.
With her husband, Tim, she raises grass-fed dairy cows, beef cattle, laying hens, broilers, ducks, sheep, goats, turkeys, and grows a variety of produce for her multi-generational family and local community. Her new book is called The Nourishing Asian Kitchen: Nutrient Dense Recipes for Health and Healing.
Sophia begins by talking about her journey from medical school and Silicon Valley to starting her own homestead farm with her husband.
She explains the influence of her grandfather and mother on the book. In fact, the recipes are from her mother who had been cooking “nose to tail” her entire life, before it was even a thing. Over the past ten years, Sophia and her mother have been refining the recipes.
She says the cookbook is much more than a cookbook – the book is her activism coming out. It’s a call to action for going back to a natural way of eating and living.
One of Sophia’s greatest joys is to give away and share food from her farm with her community. She finds this lifestyle so deeply fulfilling: “what better gift can I give you then the gift of delicious nourishing food.”
For anyone thinking about starting their own farm or even just getting a few chickens in the backyard, Sophia says simply: “start where you’re at.” One by one, this is how you take back control over your health and your food.
You can visit Sophia’s website right here: https://sprinklewithsoil.com/
You can also find her wonderful book The Nourishing Asian Kitchen here: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-nourishing-asian-kitchen/
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