Hi.
My name isn’t Eleanor, it’s Molly. I’m a food, travel and adventure writer, entrepreneur, wife and mom living in Minneapolis. I like to do things that scare me & then write about it.
My name isn’t Eleanor, it’s Molly. I’m a food, travel and adventure writer, entrepreneur, wife and mom living in Minneapolis. I like to do things that scare me & then write about it.
Catching my first fish, which was really, really scary.
(Hi! I’m doing most of my writing on Substack these days. You can subscribe for free below!)
In October of 2013, I took Eleanor Roosevelt'’s advice and started doing one thing every day that scared me, chronicling the experience on my blog, Hey Eleanor. I thought I needed to conquer big, fat, stereotypical fears like skydiving, bungy jumping and hang gliding. I sprinkled in lots of nan-adrenaline-seeking challenges to fluff up the space between, like cooking mussels at home and even taking the bus home from work. As it turns out, I learned more from conquering everyday fears than I did jumping out of a plane.
Facing those small fears made a huge impact on my life. Instead of complaining when my husband asked to help out in the garage, I eagerly agreed, knowing I’d get a great blog post out of it. I stopped waiting on friends and family's availability to check out that new movie, museum or restaurant. If I wanted to go and no one could join me, I just went by myself and guess what? It was still fun!
Unintentionally, I got into the practice of living outside my comfort zone. Saying yes when I’d normally have said no became second nature. It’s not that I was no longer afraid, but as it turns out, you can practice being afraid. The more you do it, the less daunting scary things feel. Also, I learned that nothing is as scary in reality as it is in your head. Except bungy jumping, which is way worse.
I’m happier, healthier and more fun to be around. It’s awesome.While I still write about conquering fear, I no longer write about it every day. Instead, I'm sharing the ways I make every day an adventure. Because you don't have to fly half-way around the world to live life to the fullest (though that works, too). Adventures can happen a state a way, down the street or in your own backyard. You have the opportunity for adventures every day. It's just a matter of seeing them, and then saying, sure, let's do this!
The daughter of a flight attendant and a hippy-turned-real estate developer who toured Europe in a Volkswagen bus, Molly Mogren Katt arrived on earth with an undeniable sense of adventure. From hiking the Antarctic Peninsula, to outrunning a hyena in South Africa and even driving a street-legal monster truck through Des Moines, Iowa—she never turns down an opportunity to do something crazy.
Mogren Katt loves writing, old houses, dogs, and Vietnamese food. When she’s not googling “epigenetics” or “borderline personality disorder” for her most recent book project, Mom Genes, she’s a freelance food and travel writer with bylines in Delta Sky, Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine, and Experience Life.
She’s written three books with James Beard Award-winning chef and travel personality Andrew Zimmern (Travel Channel/MSNBC)-- two for Random House and one for MacMillan. Zimmern and Mogren Katt co-hosted the award-winning podcast, Go Fork Yourself, for three years. She also writes for an Emmy-winning travel show host Samantha Brown.
Mogren Katt currently hosts Matriarch Digital Media’s A Mess in the Kitchen podcast. In addition to writing, keeping her kids alive and cooking, she’s a sucker for animal rescue and loves fostering dogs. She and her husband, Josh, spent 2020-202? restoring a 1903 Victorian house in Minneapolis. It’s their Covid project, and they haven’t divorced each other yet. They live with their kids, Arlene and Clark, dogs Patsy Cline and Billie Murray, and share the house with two ghosts name Harry and Harriet.
