well friends, believe it or not, my blog just reached its three-year anniversary! i cannot believe i’ve been blogging for three years! or that the past three years flew by so fast!
hi everyone, i’m back from my trip to the midwest, and finally sitting down to post after a long week at work. i had a fabulous time with my family in indiana and chicago – we had beautiful weather, and spent time celebrating my great uncle’s 99th birthday, looking at pictures with my great aunt (my grandmother’s older sister), walking around the campus of purdue, viewing exhbits at the chicago art institute, taking the “l” to wrigley field, and most importantly, getting to know our family in the midwest a lot better and learning about my norwegian heritage. i discovered that my love for cooking and welcoming friends into my home is decidedly norweigian, and learned that norwegians get upset when people visit without calling, because they can’t prepare coffee and bake cookies before inviting guests into their homes. to that end, when our friends came over this weekend, i decided i had to honor my heritage and make some cookies (albeit with them, not before they came over).
mmmm…waffles! it’s hard for me to begin writing, because i placed all of the pictures in my post first, and instead of writing text around them, i keep drooling over the memory of the taste of these waffles and wishing that i had some leftover, waiting around in my fridge to be eaten. alas, they are long gone, so i’ll try to move on.
ok, so first things first: have you noticed that my fabulously talented husband and i did some work on my blog this weekend? i updated the header, added a recipe index so you can easily find recipes in their appropriate meal section (breakfast, entree, etc), or search through categories for ideas of what to make (including vegan, garlic and onion free, and sugar free), and mike provided a bunch of technical expertise, plus tweaked text formatting, and added some ads to the sidebar. thanks, mike!
i’ve been thinking about food a lot this week. as you might guess, this is not entirely unusual for me — as i am a major food lover and, obviously, blogger. but this week, i’ve been thinking especially hard about food for a few reasons. the first is that i began reading the book in defense of food, by michael pollan. i labored my way through his first book, omnivore’s dilemma, perhaps because i am not an omnivore (there are long chapters about killing wild pigs and the beef industry that are slightly nauseating), or perhaps because it seemed too close to something i might have read in one of the many sociology classes i took in college – assigned but not thoroughly enjoyed reading. the second book, however, is my first suggestion to you – i am tearing through it, and taking a lot of what he says to heart. what’s really resonated for me is his discussion of the importance of real, whole foods (not the store) – avocado, bananas, carrots, etc – instead of eating filler foods chemically designed to taste good and supply nutrients deemed important by the fda (think most commercial breakfast cereals and packaged frozen dinners). pollan questions whether food scientists have figured out what’s important for people to consume yet, and notes that food is about so much more than nutrients – it’s about the act of cooking with friends and family, interacting with them, savoring the taste of the food, and yes, there are nutrients in whole foods, but they are only part of the process. (thanks for hosting this “process” aka dinner this week, linn!)
unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past several months, i’m sure you’re all quite aware of the economic crisis facing our country. while mike and i are lucky enough to remain in our excellent places of employment, and the majority of our friends are still working and not impacted by the tough times, it has brought up a new awareness for me about finances. now, mike and i are no financial gurus, but we’ve been using the website mint.com to set budgets and watch where we’re spending our hard earned money. it’s been eye opening to see how much of our money goes directly to food. and while this amount spent on food isn’t exorbitant, there are definitely a lot of take out sushi expenditures, and we often throw uneaten produce into the worm compost bin.
recently, a good friend sent me an article from cnn.com with ideas for $10 meals and challenged me to “better and more vegetarian friendly version.” so i am responding to the challenge with my own twist on saving money in the food realm, because i got frustrated quantifying how much money i spent on a specific meal, mostly since i pull lots of ingredients from my stocked cupboard (spices, flours, bouillon cubes, canned beans, etc). let’s just say this post was inspired by the article above, but does not direct speak to it…and i promise to hone my pricing skills and get back to you.