I’d really rather make tomato sauce than go clothes shopping.

My last post briefly mentioned that we had guests arriving the following day. To our delight, they arrived a couple of hours earlier than expected (they were driving), and so we got extra time with some of our closest long-distance friends. They left last Thursday. Last Friday, Bill’s father and stepmother arrived. Today is our first full calendar day without someone arriving or leaving.

Today, my plan was to make tomato sauce. I was hoping to get a bunch of sauce in the freezer for future eating. Then I realized 1) I can buy jarred tomato sauce. I can buy it in the grocery store and I can buy it from Tomato Mountain and 2) I thus have other, more pressing issues.

So, today I’m not making tomato sauce.… Continue reading →

The blueberries did it

In my last couple of entries, I discussed getting to feeling like all things associated with food were terrible and then how I moved past that situation. That could be a sufficient set of posts to put out there, but I felt like I should post a bit on how I got there. This is as much for myself to have something to look back to as it is to share, but I hope others will find it valuable as well.

So, what the hell went wrong?

Lots of things, but let’s start here: I love a farmers’ market. Oh, MAN, do I love a farmers’ market. I love the bustle of people. I love looking at all the produce and the cheese and the plants and the flowers (this time of year).… Continue reading →

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 →

Visiting Dallas and then on to New Mexico

There are two things going on recently that have taken a bunch of my energy, and made April a poor month for posting. By now, I am wondering if I have any readers left. I sure hope so! I’ll keep writing even if I don’t have confirmation, though, as I think it’s good for me.

Indeed, I suspect I’d have felt less insane if I’d worked on keeping SOMETHING posted to this blog over the past month.

To be quick, the two things are that I agreed to be the market manager for a local community/farmers market in Chicago. So, starting in June, I’ll be out every Sunday running a market. That should be fun and exhausting. I look forward to that part. Right now, it entails a lot of meeting people and trying to figure out what we need to do to get it all up and running.… Continue reading →