I have started making smoothies for breakfast. I love it. One banana, milk and a smattering of frozen fruit. The other day, I saw that my bananas weren’t going to make it through to the next smoothy so I froze several just to not be wasteful. This morning, I used the frozen banana and WHAT? It makes the smoothy way smoother. It’s like having ice cream for breakfast. Try it. I’m telling you! It’s AWESOME!!!
Here in Small Town there are alot of Mormons. There seem to be missionaries everywhere! They are riding their bikes and walking and talking and well, we have a large Mormon population anyway but then there are the missionaries and we are saturated. Every 6 months or so, a new crop of missionaries will come in. Inevitably they will come to the house and strike up a conversation. They usually start with asking if they can do anything for us. For some reason, they always show up just around dinner time. I don’t know if my mom’s kitchen (which is huge) is a legend in the mormon world or if the scent of her homemade cakes wafts down the street to the ward only two blocks away but those Mormon’s know just when to come and knock. My mom can’t resist inviting a young person to eat. So in they come and then they come back and are invited in again and well… we aren’t Mormon so the success rate of their conversion attempts is clear. The usually leave a little bit fatter and we have yet another copy of the Book of Mormon.
Truth: I consider myself a churchy person. Why? Because all my friends are at my church. I love my church. I’m involved in my church and I regularly attend my church. However, I don’t feel the need to create baptized members of my church for the books.
Nestle Tollhouse has taken the ? out of the perfect chocolate chip cookie.
They found it and printed it right on the side of their impossibley awesome chocolate chips. Not only did they find the recipe but they put it right in the spot where you will always be able to find it and never lose it or even have to look it up in your favorite cook book.
People still had trouble so they went a step further and made the dough, packaged it and put it in the refrigerator aisle so all you have to do it buy the dough and bake it off. You can buy it by the tub. You can even skip the baking and just eat the dough!
But people still didn’t want to take the time.
Several weeks ago, Nestle Tollhouse put in a OUTLET where all they do it make this refrigerated dough up into the actual cookie and serve it with milk. Yup… That used to just be grandma’s house.
If Small Town Life has taught me anything, it’s that food is the only way to react to anything. This spring has been a time of going out and coming in life. There have been several deaths in the church and my family and around town and basically, the whole town reacts with food. They make freezer meals and bring them over or just come with a meal that’s ready for that night. If someone dies, you won’t have to cook in that house for a month. 
Of course, we had a baby this spring and that same thing happened. FOOD! It’s awesome
Truth: What else can we do when we want to support those who are going through something? Either a new something or a sad something or whatever. Food delivery is standard because it helps in several ways.
1. Usually, food is delivered in throw away containers. This means, if you have paper plates, no dishes. As a new mother and also someone who has dealt with a death in the family and severe illness in the family, I can attest to the awesomeness of not having to do dishes!
2. Having food delivered saves money. When you are dealing with a new expense of some kind (a baby or a funeral or hospital billls), having food delivered saves money. Maybe not alot of money but some and every little bit helps.
3. It is one less decision that has to be made. Have you ever been in the situation where one more decision will throw you over the edge? After having a baby or deciding on someone’s end of life wishes, deciding what to have for dinner is just one more thing and it might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
So, to all those ladies who organize meals for people in the church or community – keep on keeping on. If you are one of the people in the crowd – sign up. That one meal makes a world of difference to those who are hurting, busy, or just plain overwhelmed.
The first week of March is filled with birthday’s galore in our family. Our two daughters and their cousin. They are March 1, 2 and 7 respectively. So, yesterday we had a combined birthday party for all three. Recently our girls have gotten into watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Â So, they requested a pirate birthday party. It actually was a lot of fun with a Treasure Chest Pinata filled with Chocolate gold coins, balloon swords, face painting, tattoos, and CAKE!!! Check out other cake creations by Grammy Sue at her blog. The party sucked all the energy out of me and wifey, but it was totally worth it. Our girls and their friends had a total blast.
Truth – I love bacon. I eat turkey bacon because it’s healthier and I’m a bit religious. No pig products in this house. It’s a little Jewish, I know. I’m not Jewish. However, turkey bacon makes me all happy and as Valentines day is coming and Andy had to do a savory eatable assignment for photography, we set up this awesome shot. Baked turkey bacon (bake it rolled with on skewers), put on flower arrangement card holders and tomatoes and lettuce to garnish. It’s awesome and yummy. Now that the shoot is over, we are crisping up the bacon and I’m going to pig out while he puts it all in the computer. Yummy!!!!!!!!!
Truth: I could never be or work for a food photographer. I’m compelled not to let anything go to waste so I’d be eating all the subject matter and no doubt tip the scales at a quite hefty weight before to long… – the wifey
I have never really been much of a chef. However, if there is a recipe I can usually do ok. Since, moving to Colorado I have taken over the majority of the cooking duties, which made my wife nervous. I have definitely improved in my culinary arts, but still have a way to go. My wife always talks about opening up a restaurant one day, maybe one day my soups will be on the menu.
I love food. I love watching FN and I love the idea of amazing food, one of a kind food being made exclusively for a few diners. I envy the people who have money to eat fancy all the time.
I also love making food. I love trying to make gourmet food for my family. It’s amazing and fun and creative.
However, because of the kind of Christian I am, I eat only clean meats. Therefore, I will never be able to be a food critic or eat at a restaurant where they just serve you and you enjoy what you are given whether it’s squid or chicken. I’m just not evolved enough to eat a squid. I mean, who looked at a lobster and said, “Let’s eat that!”
I live in the United States of America where we have the wonderful option to eat however we want: clean, vegetarian, vegan, organic, fancy, cheap. Don’t tell me that poor people can’t eat what they want because it doesn’t take ANYTHING to get on food stamps. I was on them for two years and we got a huge food allowance and even on food stamps, I was able to cook WHATEVER I WANTED! We might not have been able to go out to eat ever but we could buy anything we needed at the grocery store and cook it however we liked and we never spent a dime of our own money. This country gives all people the possibility of eating however they want no matter their status. The only people who are going hungry are those who refuse food stamps or are to young to cook for themselves and their parents are irresponsible enough to not feed them the way they could. (Ok, I’m off my soap box.)
I will not be arrogant enough to argue the merits of GMO or non GMO or organic or non organic. There are people who do not live in this GREAT COUNTRY and do not have the options we have here and are being denied basic nutrition because of these arguments. Don’t argue about this until you have seen, experienced real hunger in a country that doesn’t offer free food to whoever can’t afford it or lived in a country where there simply isn’t enough food because of war or embargoes or stupid people.
Because of AMERICA and my good fortune to have been born here, I will never go hungry and I have the option to only ever be a mediocre foodie.
My wife wrote the previous post about the Pie Auction, and this was her prize!!! It is quite delicious!!!
Today I went to a school fundraiser where they were auctioning off baked goods. As a general rule, I avoid buying anything at these things. I’m just not that rich.
OK, we need to back up. When I was a student at this same one room school house, the very same people who donated baked goods tonight were the moms of my classmates. Some of my favorite memories are of the food they used to make.
We used to go out into the country and see this lady who would feed us perogies and introduced us to ethnicity and massive amounts of butter and nicely boiled dough. I would run in and grab them off the tray before they were offered to anyone else and eat them while tossing them hot-potato style from one hand to the other they were so hot. I see her at church still but she didn’t bring anything to the auction although a batch of those would have drawn me to empty my bank account in a bidding war.
Corinne used to make this awesome nachos sauce that we basically wanted to bathe in. We drank it like juice when the chips were gone and unlike the nachos you get at some concession stand, you ALWAYS had enough sauce for the chips. It was amazing and perfect and I still dream about it. Corinne was sitting behind and to the left of me and she brought a giant plate of cookies that I drooled over. However, I didn’t bid. There was something even more enticing.
Darlene is the grandmother of one of the kids from my own childhood. She had a hole in the wall diner were I was first introduced to the breakfast burrito and PIE! I was never much of a pie girl until Darlene. She makes the best pies in the world and at 8 years old, I let cake go as my favorite thing in the world and started craving PIE – specifically lemon meringue and coconut cream pie. I still dream about her pie.
And there she was – Darlene. She doesn’t have the diner any more but she came to the auction anyway with TWO AMAZING COCONUT CREAM PIES! I actually let the first one go just to gauge what the competition was going to be. Then after many other items had been bid on (including my mom’s custom pumpkin spice cake made to look like a pumpkin with mice burrowing out that went for $80) and people were starting to wear down and run out of money, up came the last pie.
I’m not much for bidding. I’m not big on ebay and I’ve never been to any other kind of auction accept these school bake sale types but that pie… needless to say, I was all over it. But I wasn’t alone. There were a few other bidders set on having this particular pie. So I stooped low and used my five year old as a bidding paddle and she was all cute and made everyone feel bad for bidding against her. Still, it took some serious fighting and a very high bid on the pie to get my prize. I took it home, the girls having a wonderful time anticipating a taste of mommy’s favorite desert. They took a few bites and were done. They didn’t like it!
SCORE! More for me.
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