Food for thought

Not having a refrigerator for a few days (sucks) and has had me thinking a lot about food.  

I like food.  Well, I don't like food, I LOVE it.  [As a side note: I make many references to Pixar movies in my emails and blog posts that Woody thinks are esoteric and no one gets.  Like when I wrote that email awhile back about Maya crawling & the title was, "we've got ourselves a crawler" clearly referring to Cars when Mack (the semi-truck) is hauling Lightening McQueen (race car) to California and the four hot rod cars pull up alongside a very drowsy Mack and say, "we've got ourselves a nodder" and then start playing Kenny G music to make him drowsier.  Deb, c'mon, you got me on that one, right? Anyway, that last sentence is a nod to Ratatouille when Linguine (the kid/chef) says to Anton Ego (food critic) "you're skinny for someone who likes food" and Ego replies, "I don't like food, I LOVE it."] 

Anyway, now that I have finished school and have an abundance of free time, I find that I want to spend it all in the kitchen.  I want to cook and bake and create.  Unfortunately, I have two little guys that don't enjoy food as much as I do and scream 'grody' (baby sis) and 'yuck', 'icky', & 'that's bisgusting' (Owen) when they come to the dinner table. 

But, I am so inspired by Alice Waters lately and her approach to food and cooking.  She suggests buying seasonally and looking for the freshest, best looking produce (or meat, bread etc.) and not messing with it too much.  A little olive oil here, a little roasting there and voila, a tasty, delectable dish.  The cookbook pictured above is wonderful and we've (just Woody and I) enjoyed many delicious meals (my mouth waters thinking about the roasted eggplant and tomato pizza).

OM?  They like their food processed.  Frozen waffles, oatmeal, cereal, crackers, Dora-shaped mac-n-cheese, frozen mini pizzas, chicken nuggets...you catch my drift.  (Of course, I am the one responsible for what is on their plates..Sigh..)

But there is hope.  They both like most fruits, yogurt, hummus, whole wheat cous cous, brown rice, fresh muffins, and Owen will eat a pile of green peas (not baby sis).   This spring and summer my goal it to increase their consumption of vegetables.  So, the picture below shows our new garden.  Woody built it and OM and I started a whole bunch of seedlings in little pots that we'll transplant soon and since farmer's market has finally started we'll be buying lots of veggies to plant from there too.  I cannot wait!  I'm hoping that the 'garden to table' approach will be the magic that gets them to enjoy fresh veggies as I do.

Below is a photo of my new black beauty (there will NEVER be a true black beauty like my beloved nissan pick-up [who, by the way, is living large south of the border in glorious Mexico...my friend's dad bought her and even had 'black beauty' painted on her and refers to her as black beauty..viva Mexico!!]) but my new fridge is big and the doors open all the way in the badly built space because we upgraded to french doors...hooray!!

Bon appetit...buen provecho...happy eating!!