In celebration of the advent of autumn, I am writing today about an idea, which, I believe, has been collecting and coalescing in my brain all summer. While this is ostensibly a cooking blog, and while recipes have been and will continue to be shared, it is also a place where I want to share my own struggles and triumphs as a woman, a mother, and a wife. Family can be magnificently complicated. Add food to the mix, and, often, a wonderful and terrible maelstrom ensues.
My daughter, code named “Nancy D”, has been pestering me to make real French macrons. We did. They were not beautiful. I got distracted and over-cooked a batch. But we did it. We did it in a messy kitchen where a third of the main counter was taken over by a kinetic sand creation zone. Nancy D and I like to do a baking project on Sunday afternoons. We will have to try this one again sometime!
In a world where photos of perfectly arranged food and exquisitely decorated sweets suggest perfectly arranged lives and exquisitely dressed/manicured/coiffed cooks, I want to present my reality. The reality of being so busy and distracted by obligations and problems that I forget to actually photograph the food until it is half eaten, the reality that my family is less than perfect and that my kids often dislike to eat their vegetables, and the reality that there are some days when cooking feels much more like a chore than a pleasure.
Despite these realities, I keep coming back to my interest in and love of food. I am energized by frequent enough successes to keep on going. I work with my kids and their temperamental palates, and I feel thankful for small victories. This is place from which I am writing, and I invite you to join me in the struggle as we work to feed ourselves, our families, and our planet.
Or, maybe you just want the recipes. I will be the first to admit that I get heartily sick of wading through descriptions and ads in search of the recipe that met my search terms in the first place! When there is a recipe, I will include this first. And no distracting pop-ups that you have to close so you can focus on the thing you were looking for in the first place.
I hope that you will join me in this journey as I embrace the reality of imperfection and celebrate the triumphs, both notable and seemingly insignificant.
