Fixing Food

In my last entry, I wrote a little bit about my return home and discovering that I suddenly had quite the adversarial relationship with food. In truth, it probably wasn’t as sudden as it seemed, but it sure did hit me hard when it finally came to a head.

I, quite literally, spent the first five days upon returning home thinking about what the hell had happened here. Why did the very thought of cooking, writing a blog post, reading a food book or food blog, or really anything fill me with an intensely snarly feeling?

When had food, by which I mean every single thing that could fall under the umbrella of that word, become a chore?

And how do you fix that when it’s not just your hobby, your major source of entertainment, and a great deal of your intellectual pursuits, but also something you can’t just totally walk away from?… Continue reading →

When a Food Blogger Doesn’t Want to Cook

Bill and I got home from a whirlwind of travel (as mentioned in passing in my last post) about ten days ago, and I’ve been pretty discombobulated every since.

I should be clear. We both got home about ten days ago, but Bill left again not quite a week after that. So I have been home about ten days. And pretty much the first week of it was filled with adjusting to being home after being gone so long, and then getting ready for Bill to leave again. As you can imagine, this has been a point source of the discombobulation. Other things, like coming down from seeing far-away friends, also played a role.

But, surprisingly, food has also been a huge factor in my being out of sorts.… Continue reading →

Eating In Challenge Update

I last updated everyone on my attempt to eat in a week into the challenge. I’m now three and a half weeks in, and I thought I’d give another update.

The week spanning 18 April to 25 April was basically good, but I ate through two of my meals on the 24th & 25th. One of them was intentional, as it is my monthly meal out with a couple of friends. The other was an embarrassing mistake that wasn’t really worth it.

In essence, Bill talked me into splitting a couple of cupcakes with him, pointing out that snacks out aren’t meals out. Cupcakes are, quite frankly, my biggest weakness and I have struggled most (internally) with snacks. Overall, I have not been inclined to hold them against myself, but I do think my friend Jen would have a point if she called it ‘out of bounds’.Continue reading →

Confession:

Bill tells me regularly that he thinks I’m turning into a better cook by the day, and he’s always grateful for whatever I cook.

However, I’m still pretty poor at figuring out how to throw food together and have a meal result.

In fact, my confession is that I’m not only “poor” at it, I basically have no functional ability to look at my stash of food and make a delicious meal come out of it. And it’s not as if my stash is small. I have a decent sized set of shelves that I call my pantry (it’s ugly, but it works) that’s stuffed to the gills with food & ingredients, I have a fridge which is usually between “somewhat full” and “burstingly full”, I have the freezer that lives on top of the fridge and is always full, AND I have an apartment-sized stand-alone freezer.… Continue reading →

Quickie post

The worst part about teaching a pregnant woman who doesn’t speak English very well how to bake cookies is that you can’t chow down on cookie dough in front of her.

The best part, though, is much better. And that’s baking cookies with a new friend, and getting to chow down on them together, and watching her learn after she just put you through your paces on the piano. At least, that’s my best part.… Continue reading →