Why I started this blog

I have finally reached a point in my life that I never thought was possible: I am sick of take-out. I don’t want to eat in restaurants, I don’t want to order pizza, and I don’t want to pick up Chinese. For the first time ever, I’ve found myself longing for home cooked meals with meat, starch, and vegetables. Instead of potato chips, I’ve been craving red peppers and hummus and almonds. I’ve been longing for the taste of fresh, raw veggies and tangy fruits and pure water. Yes, water. I’ve actually been actively craving glasses of cool water.

My first thought was that I must be crazy. My second was that I might be pregnant. And my third was “well, it’s about damn time.”

I have always had a love-hate relationship about the kinds of foods I put in my body. I could blame in on how I grew up or those summers of fat camp, but the truth is that I never made time for food on a regular basis. Sure, I could whip up something special for a holiday (I make a mean Passover) or spend a lazy Sunday afternoon baking, but on a regular Tuesday night, the only thing I’d be using in the kitchen would be the take out menu drawer. Or, once I started college, the local online food ordering service that made it all too easy to get pizza delivered at 2am. So while I loved the convenience of it all, I hated the greasy way the food slid through my body and the exorbitant amount of money I was spending to (semi) nourish myself.

I’ve been unhappy with my eating style for a while, but not yet ready to take the plunge and do something about it. However, after watching Ellen Tarlin overhaul her eating habits earlier this year on Slate.com’s Clean Plate blog, I started to think that maybe I could do this too. So I opened my eyes (and my nose) and began to pay a lot more attention to how other people were eating and what I liked about it. I saw my cousin pack fresh red pepper in his daughter’s lunchbox and my brother cook a thin steak with just salt and pepper instead of a complicated glaze. I smelled my sister-in-law’s pesto pasta and watched my friend prepare a summer salad. And then I asked for some help and was given recipes and resources and foods to try from all across my social network.

This blog is as much about the people that inspire me as it is about myself. To honor that, I will always post links to where I found recipes or ideas and give credit where credit is due. I will also point out where I did things differently so that you can choose which version you want to follow.

I’m notorious for going on big shops and then not eating the groceries I buy. Whenever I tell my fiancé that I’m at the store, he always reminds me of the pile of rotten or rotting food that we just threw out days/weeks/months before and cautions me against buying too much. Of course he’s right, but it also perpetuates the cycle of eating out once, twice, or even three times a day.  Now, that is all going to change.

Here are my goals for this blog:

1)   I will cook/prepare my own food at least 4 days a week (including leftovers). Hopefully it will be more, but old habits die hard, so I want to make my goal manageable.

2)   I will try a new food at least once a week. In the beginning it will be a lot more (my pantry is full of new items I’ve been eager to try!), but as time goes on I’m sure it will even out. I’ll highlight these foods with a “new food alert.”

3)   I will incorporate many different colored fruits and vegetables because I learned in nutrition class that “a colorful diet is a healthful diet.” I’m going to have “color days” and challenge myself to eat according to the rainbow.

4)   I will focus on using fresh, (mostly) seasonal ingredients.

5)   I will try to save money. Eating out is expensive, but cooking doesn’t have to be. I will show (when possible) how much a meal would cost in a restaurant vs. what it costs to make. Hopefully we can tally up some big savings.

6)   I will compile a list of food resources that is geared towards novices like me who aren’t sure which foods go best with what. We’ll figure it out together.

I’m not an expert, and I don’t have all of the answers, so this blog will be about you as much as it is about me. So come, look around, give advice, get advice, and hopefully leave as excited about food as I am.