A sad and a happy

I'm feeling blank this afternoon. Not in a bad way... I'm just not sure what to write. My life has been so boring lately ... well, not to me, but probably boring to everyone else. I love my routine. I love spending so much time in the kitchen. I love playing housewife during the week. I've even *gasp* taken great satisfaction in washing the dishes lately.

But there's not that much to blog about, right now. I'm usually one of those people who wants to DO something all the time. This occasionally poses a problem with Mark, because he says that you can't do something ALL time time. I disagree. Usually, I go-go-go. I guess lately, what I've been DOING is cooking :) It works out nicely for both of us.

I do have one thing that I'm pretty excited about (and not, at the same time), which is coming up pretty soon. Mark will be chaperoning an overseas mission trip with his brother's youth group next week. That's right, I said chaperoning. My husband, in charge of teenagers. What a scary thing to think about!! (J/k, baby, if you're reading this!)

That's the part I'm not super excited about, because I can't go. This will be the longest we've been apart since before we got married, and since it's overseas, we'll have very little contact with each other. Boo hiss. How very lonely, and not fun.

Enter: my sister! She's coming to stay with me most of the time that Mark is gone, and I am SO excited about it! We've made grand plans (per usual) that involve lots and lots and lots of cooking delicious foods, going fun places, and generally prancing around and having a merry old time. I can't wait to see her again ... I just wish Mark wasn't going to be gone :(

(P.S. A shameless plug for my sister - she's just posted a recipe for Paula Deen's cheesecake bars ... it looks delightful, plus there's the added bonus of seeing the widely-feared vanilla monster!)

Hope you guys had a great Wednesday!

My Personal Food Culture

I am so thankful that I have a mom who likes to cook. I was lucky, growing up, to be one of the few kids that I knew who sat down and ate with their family. We ate breakfast together every morning at the kitchen table, and we ate dinner together every night. I credit my mother for a lot of things, but specific to this, eating dinner helped keep me sane. It kept me healthy. It helped me develop a good relationship with food. That table was where we talked about our days, where we talked through our problems and issues, where I associate with comfort. To this day, when I'm staying with my parents (holidays, visiting, whatever), there's just something about having a cup of coffee made for you and set in front of you with all the love a mother can give. That kitchen feels more like home to me than does any other place in my parents' house.

My sister, still in high school, baking thumbprint cookies in my parents' kitchen

My mom, making fried green tomatoes for the Fourth of July the year Mark and I got married

I didn't really learn how to cook there. I was really spoiled when I was younger, so I didn't really learn how to cook/clean/do my own laundry very well until I went off to college. That's where I started, with my mom's recipes and a willing spirit. And then, after I got married, it was something I wanted to be really good at. So I tried hard to learn to cook both the things my mom made and new things of my own, and gradually developed my own tastes and ideas and beliefs about real things and fresh things and food that makes me happy.

On fall break one year, in Hannah's family cabin, making Chicken Noodle Soup group-style

Cooking with one of my roommates in our apartment my senior year of college

Now, I have the best memories in kitchens. Because while being cooked for is fantastic, cooking with someone you love is even better. Making pizzas on Christmas eve with our whole family, baking cookies and Oreo truffles with my mom. Making her scrambled eggs with greens in them. Cooking extravagant meals and trying new things with Elissa. Experimenting with Kelly. Exchanging recipes with everyone.

Mark and Matthew doing the dishes after Elissa and I made dinner

M

My mom, dancing and singing with our Christmas dinner this past year.

Pizza on Christamas eve

Tab, Elissa's roommate, with the blueberry brownies we made

Kelly slicing peppers in my parents' kitchen

I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker the other day. I talk about food and cooking a lot at work, because it's something I really, really love and care about. I made muffins for everybody the other morning, and she said something along the lines of "Wow, you really do like to cook." Which started this conversation. She, apparently, doesn't. She says she doesn't know how to cook, doesn't cook very well.

In Nashville: good food, good wine, good friends

 Pizza fixin's on Christmas eve

My mom making cornbread ... and having difficulties

And I always wonder... what on earth do people like that eat? How can you feed yourself if you can't cook? Does your family sit down for dinner together? Do you eat fast food all the time? It always baffles me when people say "Oh, I don't cook." I'm thankful that I really don't have any concept of that "I don't cook" statement, but what does it mean for their families and their children?

So I'm posing the question to all of you. Do you cook? If so, what do you cook? Do you sit down and eat as a family (or, if you're single, did you when you were little?) And if you don't cook ... what do you eat??

Immediate Funk Eliminator:

The new HP7 trailer is now out.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/harrypotterandthedeathlyhallows/

oh. em. gee.
(P.S. This one has lots of potential spoilers, so if you haven't read the seventh book, don't watch the trailer. Or, do, and be maybe-confused and maybe-disappointed, because you just found out what happens.)

Harry Potter makes my heart happy.

(And it will always, always be better than Twilight.)

Blah.

On Mondays, I always feel like I'm incredibly behind on blogging. Maybe it's because I just can't get to it ever on the weekends, even to read the blogs I'm following. But I always come into Monday feeling like I have to catch up.

Except, nothing exciting ever happens on the weekends. I work. I sleep. That's about it.

So I guess I'll tell you what I did today. The morning started on an unfortunate note, as I had to go see the lady-doctor (or, as one of my co-workers lovingly terms it, the Annual Invasion.) I can check that one off my list for another year, at least...
Then I went to a staff meeting. Thrilling.
Then I came home and Mark and I went to Panera.
(I know, you're all on the edge of your seats, right?)

And when we got back, I sort of fell into this funk. I've been in a weird mood all evening. I went grocery shopping which helped (is it weird that I really love to grocery shop?), and then came home and cleaned out and re-organized all our kitchen cabinets and made a complete inventory of all the non-perishable foods there, and that made me feel a WHOLE lot better.

And now I'm back in a funk. I'm not sure what's up with this. Maybe hormones...

Hopefully I'll be perkier tomorrow.

Yummmmy

Getting up 30 minutes early (read: 5 AM) to bake Ina Garten's Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins?

(image found here)

SO. WORTH. IT.

Fill-in-the-Blank Friday!

It's Friday again! And this week - FOOD blanks!!

As always, if you want to play along, go see Lauren at the little things we do!

1.  If I could choose my last meal it would be        a toss up between lamb chops with mashed garlicky cheesy potatoes and veggies, and some sort of Asian-y ahi tuna salad with wasabi vinegarette  .

2.  My favorite person to share a meal with is       Mark, because I love him and he is so, so easy to please (he likes food, period.) and Elissa, because she appreciates food the same way as I do .

3.  The best meal I've ever had was       ...That is such a difficult question. There was a meal in Charleston that I had, involving the best tomato soup EVER, and some sort of salmon-y something, and I remember thinking "This might be the best thing I've ever put in my mouth." Also coming to mind is every time I've ever eaten ahi tuna. It's my favorite.  .

4.  The one food that makes me feel instantly better when I'm having a bad day is       a Baby Bite. From Pastry Art Bake Shoppe. They're these little mini-cupcakes turned upside down and drowned in buttercream. Oh. My. God. They're so good. And they make pretty much anything better  .

5.  My absolute specialty in the kitchen is     hmmm. Also a good question. I make a mean Strawberry Buttercream Icing. Pretty much any kind of icing. And cakey-type-thing. I like to bake. Oh, but I know - my absolute specialty is this AMAZING recipe for Thumbprint cookies. I don't make them very often, because I will literally eat all of them. But they're pretty amazing   .

6.  The city that has the best food is       Charleston. Or Savannah. Either one.    and my favorite restaurant there is        I honestly don't remember any!! There was this one seafood place we went to in Charleston that was PHENOMENAL... but I don't remember the names of ANY of the restaurants we ate at :( But Nashville also has some pretty rockin' food, and my favorite place there might be The Perch, which is this fantastic crepe place. SO YUM. 

7.  My favorite healthy snack is      fruit, namely oranges, strawberries, and the occasional nectarine      .

8.  In my opinion the nationality which has the best food is       a tie between Thai food and Italian food. How can I pick??     .

9.  If I could learn to cook anything in the world (and be really good at it!) I'd choose      something really impressive, like souffle. Although, I might die quickly if I cooked that very often, so maybe something healthier ... like curry dishes, especially of the Thai variety. I've still not quite mastered the art of curry (how much? what kind? paired with what? with a base of what?), but it is fast becoming one of those foods I love to eat, so being able to cook it and make it taste wonderful would be nice.       .

10.  The most outrageous dessert I've ever had was       I don't know about outrageous, but one of the most sinful and delightful desserts I've ever eaten (and made!) is amaretto pie. It is rich, and cold, and lovely. And the homemade crust with the crushed-up almonds, I die. Yummmm.       .

 I love food. Can't you tell?

New Layout

After slaving all afternoon ... my food blog finally has a new layout!! (What a wonderful waste of time ... and, I can say that I accomplished something!)

After all my hours of work ... I think you all should go take a gander :) I love the way it's turned out ... very simple.

Basil and Buttercream: A Love Affair with Food