A History of (My) Food.

From My Kitchen Today:

Whole Wheat Banana Muffins (photo tutorial and recipe to come)

So, I've begun the process of documenting my ideas through this blog.  A bit of background: over the past couple of years, I've developed a fascination/appreciation/obsession with food.  Now, don't get me wrong--I've always loved food.  My husband and I adore the experience of eating a good meal, whether it's at our table or someone else's.  And I've always enjoyed the act of cooking.

But somewhere along the way, I became less concerned about "getting food on the table" and more interested in the food itself.  Here's a brief progression of my relationship with cooking/food:

0-18: Was fed really well by my mother and grandmother.  My grandmother was a born-and-raised Southerner (and yes, that is capitalized), and therefore had a truly magnificent appreciation for salt, butter, grease, meat and flavoring.  I've never tasted anything of hers that was bland--always prefectly cooked and perfectly seasoned.  Her dinner rolls (from scratch, of course) are legendary and cause me to snub almost any other.  My mother inherited her skills from her mother.  Meaning, we always ate really well at home (note: almost always at home, very very rarely out), and she knew her way around the recipe book.

19-24:  Started playing "Sally Homemaker" after getting married (yes, at 19).  That meant I started to explore what it meant to cook.  Most of our meals were of the meat/starch/veggie variety, and I often accepted help from convenience foods.  Sometimes I would break out a cookbook to try a new recipe, but always following it to the letter.  Improvising was not my style, and I never thought too much about health or where the food comes from.  The only remarkable turn in this period of my learning to cook was that my husband and I studied abroad (in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland) for a semester.  I brought back a whole new appreciation for good wine/beer, raw cheese, fresh bread, and the European approach to meals.  Unfortunately, since we were both students, I was much limited by my budget, and most of that appreciation never made its way onto our dinner table.  Yet, we had a new-found "snobbery" of restaurant eating--from that point onward, we sought out local eating establishments over chains, and truly enjoyed the experience of hole-in-the-wall family restaurant eating.

25-now: After having my first child, I decided to make her baby food instead of buying it.  As I started reading up on veggies, and how to prep/cook them, what nutrients they had, why I should try to buy organic, etc. I began to realize that there was a lot more to this food business that I had ever considered.  In an effort to offset the high cost of organic produce, I discovered the economical benefits of buying food locally (here's where the farmer's market is brilliant) and in season.

At this point, I began to consume as much knowledge as possible about food/eating seasonally/the difference between organic and non-organic farming, and much more.  This new connection to the food chain made me a much more concientious consumer of food, and also gave me an even stronger desire to continue the legacy of wonderful cooking that runs in my family.  Albeit, I may make difference choices about food than my mother and grandmother may :)

I cook and/or bake nearly every day.  I have honed many of the skills that make cooking easier (knife skills, menu planning, shopping), and have started to make a shift toward eating more and more healthful foods.  I continue to learn about what makes a food healthy, and have begun to improvise quite a bit more.  Also, I am now comfortable with tweaking a recipe, adapting it to fit our tastes, what we have on hand, or even just make it taste better!  I by no means consider myself a gourmet cook, although I am not scared to tackle a complicated or delicate recipe.  My favorite things to cook are soups, risottos, frittatas, gnocchi (only rarely, though--very time consuming!), pestos, and pastas.  I have a love of Italian foods, thanks to my time in Switzerland/Italy, and consider that my comfort zone.  Yet, we eat very widely--my kids enjoy a curry, adore lentils in any form, and can appreciate pretty much any tasty food we put in front of them.  I consider it my goal to make tasty and not-too-time-consuming meals at home as often as possible, and as long as they fit into those two categories, I'm up for anything!

In the next cooking post, I'll share the recipe for those banana muffins.  Until then, here's to a good meal--whether you're preparing it or someone else is.

Chelsea