Some dream about a mansion with marble floors and columns to match. Some dream about a penthouse with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city skyline. Some hope for a luxurious villa retreat in a faraway land. But for me and my house, it's bountiful green acres and chickens and cattle. And apparently, singer turned chef Kelis agrees. But for her, it's not just a dream, it's the life she gets to wake up to as the owner of her very own 24-acre farm.
Kelis recently took Harper's Bazaar on a home tour of her Temecula, California farm and once again proved why she is the living breathing rendition of her ancestors' wildest dreams. In her waking life, her farm is a reality that feeds her just as much as she feeds it.
"It's peaceful. I think for me one of the biggest things was that I have been on tour for the past like 20 years and it felt like, I'm in a big city every second of the day, and it I just felt like when I come home, I don't want to come home to the same bustle and kind of same thing.
"...being able to just have ground to walk that's mine and to be able to be outside. And, I think it's just super important to, I don't know, like get your hands dirty, your feet dirty, and just kinda really absorb all of it. On your off time, especially because it kind of restores you to get back out there and do more."
Harper's Bazaar/YouTube
As accomplished as the 41-year-old has been in the music industry, Kelis has shown that there is power in the pivot by reinventing herself in ways that spoke to her most. Her most prominent shift professionally came in 2006 when she first got her feet wet in the culinary world as a part-time saucier before graduating from Le Cordon Bleu. Since then, the "Milkshake" artist has released cookbooks, a sauce line, and has even taken part in cooking series.
Through her journey as a chef, Kelis has been able to see the true power of food and understand that it is a power that can be regained.
"It's pretty crazy to be in major cities and still have food deserts and the fact that like, you know there is still so much poverty and there's still so little when we know that there is actually so much. And that was one of the big, really large driving forces for us I think. Not just as a chef but as a mom, as, you know, a black woman. Like really wanting to control our story.
"And so for me, it was really about finding ways to kind of regain the power, right? Take back our power and be able to grow what we want to eat, the way that we want to eat it. Hopefully, as we get our farming together, be able to share more of what we're learning and what we're growing with others and not just family. But that's the idea."
Harper's Bazaar/YouTube
And now, sis has a barn (that she mentions is the last thing she has to renovate), a turkey named Bob Marley, chicken, goats ducks, cows, sheep, and a budding garden on 24-acres to show for it.
Perhaps, the most impressive feature is the olive trees she grows from which she and her family press into their own olive oil that she coined as "Liquid Gold." In addition to a lot of the fresh offerings from her farm, she sells her cold pressed unfiltered olive oil too underneath the umbrella Bounty & Full. (You can find that here.)
Harper's Bazaar/YouTube
During the pandemic, Kelis noted that her ideas for Bounty & Full expanded even more as she was able to spend time on the farm and figure out what was next. And though it took the form of Gold Mine boxes that consisted of everything from food and sauces to healthcare and beauty, Kelis notes that everything she is doing connects to a bigger purpose.
"I would love to open a farm to table restaurant. But really, my real goal is to do sort of a retreat. To do like a restaurant retreat where you can stay and just rejuvenate and eat and learn and just relax."
R&R plus intentional living sounds like the move.
May we all aspire.
Featured image via Harper's Bazaar/YouTube
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From the day they met, food has always played a role in their relationship, and working together in the food industry is what we call a full circle moment. Learn more about Bryant and Daniella’s story of finding love with one another.
How they met.
Bryant: We met at a mutual clients’ house. She was doing the lady hair, and I was cooking for the lady. The client sent her downstairs to record me while I was cooking to, I guess, see what I was cooking, and I caught her recording, but we didn't talk. I caught her recording, we laughed it off, and she went about her day.
So I guess that was the first thing that made us interact with each other. A few months down the line, I think she posted something [on social media]. I hopped in her DM and responded to it, and then we decided to just meet up and hang out. I looked at her as an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur. She don’t need nothing. I don’t need nothing. It's good to hang with people who don't need nothing from you.
When we linked up, our chemistry was just so soft and just so nice. She is a great person, but after meeting up with her [for the] first time, she went back to Miami. She came back [to Atlanta], and we just kicked it off that next weekend, and ever since then, we've been locked in.
Daniella: That same client had flew me back in so I knew I had to come up here for work. But I told him that we'll meet up and [go] on a date and see each other again. When that happened, everything else was history. It just happened organically. It wasn’t forced or anything.
Bryant and Daniella Williams
Courtesy
First impressions.
Bryant: I knew for a fact for her to come downstairs and try to record me, I knew that she was brave, and that said a lot about her, because I barely even talk when I'm cooking for my clients. So you have to talk to somebody for them to feel comfortable to play with you, or do certain things. I feel like the client sent her downstairs because she knew that she's an outspoken, bubbly type of person who don't mind laughing it off if she gets caught doing it.
When she came back to Atlanta, she booked me to cook for her family. So while I was cooking for her in the kitchen, the whole time she was in there talking to me. It was like a date in the kitchen, and I cooked her food. Once the food was laid out, I just left. We had a great conversation when I was cooking for her, and also when she came downstairs and tried to record me.
Daniella: I was impressed how he was multitasking because I was asking him deep, interesting questions, and he was cooking the food, and he was still answering my questions. But I was in a relationship at that time, so I wasn't really in tune. It was no emotions. But when I came back and flew in to work, we met with each other.
He came and picked me up from the hotel and we drove around Atlanta, sightseeing. We went to the African club. So when he came downstairs, I was like okay, you not gonna hug me, you not gonna say nothing? He was shocked and we stayed together for like eight or nine hours, and he took me back to the hotel. I think he picked me up around nine at night. He took me back to the hotel around seven in the morning. Then he walked me to my hotel door. He gave me a hug and he gave me a kiss and said, 'I love you.' And I was like, what?
We stayed together for like eight or nine hours, and he took me back to the hotel. I think he picked me up around nine at night. He took me back to the hotel around seven in the morning. Then he walked me to my hotel door. He gave me a hug and he gave me a kiss and said, 'I love you.' And I was like, what?
The one.
Daniella: When we first linked up, he took me around Atlanta. He was soft and gentle. He was a gentleman. He opened the door for me and I never had nobody open the door. He opened the door every single time I was going in and getting out the car, and when we went to that restaurant. I was like, [there’s] something about him, and he was just nice, calm and patient. So I knew he was a little different from what I'm used to.
Bryant: [I knew she was the one by] how she cared so much. She didn't really know me like that. She knew of me, but she cared so much about me. When we first met, she would lay on me and just relax. For someone who just wants to relax on you, that says a lot about them towards you. It wasn't like I had to prove myself and she didn’t have to prove herself with me either. It wasn't nothing like that. We were willing to take whatever came with it. But it just was really a break. It was like the best me meeting a woman because I didn't try.
Any other woman, I might be trying to dress up, take her to this place, I did not try at all. I picked her up and I actually thought that she wasn't gonna go on the date with me because of her status and my status. I'm such a laid back homey dude and she's from Miami. I thought she would be on the City Girls, you gotta do this, do that. But she wasn't. She was the total opposite. She was a homebody, chill, like me.
Bryant and Daniella Williams
Courtesy
Marriage advice for couples.
Bryant: Work together. Communication, put your mind together.
Daniella: And keep your family out your business.
Bryant: Keep it private please. Y'all work it out first. When y'all make sure it's solidified, then you tell them, or let them find out on their own. Privacy is the most valuable thing.
Daniella: And date each other because people get married and they stop doing the things that they did to get you, or stop doing the things that they did while they were in a relationship with you, before y'all got married. No, do the same thing. For me, I get bored easy, and I think he knows that. So just keep it spicy. Keep it interesting.
Bryant: We like spontaneous stuff like last-minute trips, trying different foods, going out the country just off a spur of a moment. You gotta make it fun. Don't just make it all business. And I think one person out of the relationship needs to take the initiative to make sure their partner is relaxing and at peace. A lot of people carry functional depression to where they’re functional, like we're doing this right now, but they can be going through something.
I don't think it's male or female. I think whichever one, the other partner should notice it and work with their partner to get through whatever they get through, like, for postpartum depression and stuff. That's something that most men don't even really know exist, but that's something when she had our daughter, I had an anti-postpartum depression plan put in place for her. She didn't know about it, but I knew I was gonna be extra sweet to her.
She won't have to think about doing nothing with the little baby. My little girl was watching the football game with me, when she was a few weeks old, because I was giving her that peace, so she can just relax, because her body has been through so much. So you got to be considerate of your mate's mental state and their mental well-being, because when it's gone, it's gone and it takes a lot to get it back, so I think that's important.
When she had our daughter, I had an anti-postpartum depression plan put in place for her. She didn't know about it, but I knew I was gonna be extra sweet to her. She won't have to think about doing nothing with the little baby. My little girl was watching the football game with me, when she was a few weeks old, because I was giving her that peace, so she can just relax, because her body has been through so much.
If you see something not right with your spouse, help them get help. It's okay for them to talk to a therapist by themselves, or it's okay for them to talk to somebody, but don't just sit there and let them go into this decline and self-destruction. I think that's the most important, because sometimes she be overwhelmed, and I have to be that person to hold her up. And then sometimes I'm overwhelmed. To her, baby, I don't want to do this no more. She's like, you gonna do this. We gonna do this. And she reminds me who I am. I remind her who she is, and we come back feeling more motivated.
Daniella: I think business owners should date business owners because they understand your hustle, your hunger. They understand when you can have a day where you make $0 and you have a day when you make $1,000. But I feel like if you dating someone who is in corporate America, and you a business owner, there's going to be a lot of friction, a lot of tension, and I just feel like I want to date someone that has the same drive as me.
Because I don't want to feel like I'm trying to build a bear, build a man, and I have to pull you and drag you, or just being with somebody who got they self together. For instance, my last relationship. I won't say I was the breadwinner, but I was kind of established, and I felt like I was sleeping with the enemy. I was growing fast and I wasn't stagnant. I was trying to get to the next level. He started to be jealous of me and I feel like a lot of women deal with men trying to be jealous of them. Men also have ego issues where they don't really want their woman making a certain amount of money or making more money than them.
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