Our Origin Story
Plated Poppy came about because my friend Shana doesn’t enjoy menu planning, and I (Angel) am a die hard menu planner. I’ve been cutting up magazines for recipes for the last twenty years (maybe even the last thirty years–I’m 53 for those counting). Yes, I said cutting out recipes. I do use some online, but I still have all the subscriptions and cut out most of my recipes. Going back to Shana, that doesn’t mean Shana can’t make a weekly menu plan, because she is amazing, but she just doesn’t enjoy it (that is putting it lightly). Another thing you need to know about my friend Shana is that she is extremely creative and thoughtful. She thought that if I shared my meal plans with the world, it would at least help a few people lessen their stress, and it would REALLY help her, so hey, let’s make a website and share weekly menu plans. Of course, I thought she was over ambitious as usual, but she has the strength and courage to always make things happen. In order to make this work, I do the menu planning and writing, and she does the online content (creating a website/social media and all the things, getting everything posted, organized, designed, telling me what to do, etc., etc.).
Who We (Shana and Angel) Are
We are two friends who like one another (99% of the time for me and maybe 96% of the time for her–which is fair), enjoy creating, crafting, and planning things, and really love to laugh and be silly together. We’ve known one another since our children started school together 21 years ago, and we’ve been sharing life together ever since then. Shana is a hobby farmer, entrepreneur, friend, mother, wife, sister, daughter, and by profession, a cookie decorator. Her motto is “safety third”. I (Angel) am a holiday planner (just for my own family), friend, mother, wife, sister, daughter, and by profession, an educator. My motto is “safety first”. We are just two regular people who are spending time together doing something fun and creative. Please know that this is all for happiness and joy. We don’t get paid or sponsored for saying product names or supported in any way (except by our husbands and daughters with love and encouragement).
Who We (Shana and Angel) Aren't
What we ARE NOT is professional chefs, bloggers, influencers, content professionals, website experts, food critics, writers, editors, IT people, or anything of that nature. We definitely don’t have tons of time to make this happen. I take the menus I make on the weekend, and we try to remember to take pictures of everything we make during the week. You can definitely tell which pictures of the dishes are Shana’s because they are ten times better than mine. I write the blurbs very quickly after I plan the menu. I hardly edit (sorry to any of my school families who see this–that is not a great example–but it is about the menus–and I’m not using AI, because I am just writing what I feel), and this is just REAL LIFE. After I send menus, Shana works her supreme magic to get everything uploaded.