Food, glorious food!

Can we talk about food for a minute? It’s been on my mind a lot lately.

OK, when is it not on my mind? I love food. But my eating habits suffered in December when I was super busy with work. It’s kind of the first thing to go for me when life gets crazy. I had more vending-machine dinners that month than I care to admit.

Food makes such an impact on how I feel, and I sort of felt like a Dorito in December. I think I started to become shaped like one, too. I feel for people who are that busy all the time. Hopefully they’re better organized than me and are able to take five minutes to make their own lunches in the morning.

I’m getting back to eating real food, and—surprisingly to me—I’ve hardly eaten any meat lately. Eggs for sure, but barely any chicken, one serving of prime rib, a couple of bison meatballs, but nothing else. I’d like to say I’m doing this for the environment and for the critters, but I’m not. Meat just hasn’t appealed to me lately … and I feel great!

Anyone else consuming less meat these days?

Before having kids, my husband and I really made an effort to eat well. And by that I don’t mean healthy. I mean, we took our time making dinner and we read cookbooks like they were novels. As is typical, though, kids made life more complicated, which, in turn, made what our family eats less complicated. PB&J, anyone?

We’re trying to find a happy medium now. My daughters choked down coconut-curry tofu with rice the other night. FYI: I don’t force my kids to eat what’s on their plates, but I don’t make two different dinners for the family. If they don’t like it, too bad. There’s always breakfast. If they eat a good dinner, there’s usually a marshmallow or a Hershey’s Kiss waiting for them (hence their decision to eat the tofu the other night).

One recipe that went over well recently was Nava Atlas’ black bean and sweet potato chili . Her book The Vegetarian Family Cookbook is excellent, even for us non vegetarians.

My sister-in-law let me borrow her copy of Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros the other day, and I can’t wait to dig into that one. Kiros lives in Italy, and many of her recipes remind me of the food my Italian nana and mother used to cook. In other words, not much in there looks “low fat” or “diet,” but I’m a firm believer that if we eat the food we really want and the food we kind of think we were meant to eat, we won’t overindulge and we’ll be healthy. I’m no dietitian, though, so don’t print this out and show it to your doctor.

I’m thinking of having an Apples for Jam marathon, where I only eat recipes from that book for a month (ala Julie and Julia). I believe they call this stunt blogging. Or is it stunt eating? Either way, it sounds delicious.

What have you been eating lately? Any cookbooks you’d like to recommend?

Who have you been eating with? Have you been potlucking more? Are you eating out in restaurants more often? Or less?

Food is a visual experience for me, too. I recently came across Emerson Made , a fabric flower business back east run by a husband and wife who look like they’ve been ripped out of the pages of a J. Crew catalog. Emerson Made also designs and sells some clothes and other sewn stuff, like dinner napkins. Their table setting (see photo above) makes me want to throw a dinner party, not to mention sand and restain my dining room table, make 100 fabric flowers and drink my wine from juice glasses.

Like my nana did. It all comes full circle, huh?

P.S. The Festival of Foodies at Spokane Community College happens tomorrow. Enjoy samples from great local restaurants like Latah Bistro and Wild Sage . Ticket info and other details here .