Food, Glorious Food

I'm becoming quite the little cook since we moved to Iowa.

This, of course, will come as a surprise to Keith when he reads it.

Note, though, that I didn't say a good cook, just "quite the little" one.

Mainly, I've been trying to actually cook real food more. Not just heat up quickie pre-processed stuff. Not eat out. Really cook.

A few things have motivated this, I believe. 1) A new kitchen to toodle around in. 2) Rediscovering old kitchen tools that I forgot I had as I unpack. 3) The fall weather -- always makes me crave real, home-cooked food and real, home-baked desserts. 4) My friend Robin's blog (http://robinshreeves.blogspot.com/) about "going green". I find myself making my weekly meal list and walking through the grocery store thinking, "What would Robin do?"

You would think in farming country here, I'd be able to find some places to get fresh organic produce, fresh hormonal-free milk, fresh chemical-free meat (or whatever the problem is supposed to be about meat . . ). No such luck, yet. And Keith works for a dairy, for crying out loud.

Eastin has also shown a sudden interest in cooking. She wants to help out preparing meals anytime I will let her . . . as long as she isn't in the middle of something else more fun.

The unfortunate side-effect of all this -- my new jeans I bought a few months ago aren't fitting very well. (Of course, I can undoubtably blame some of that on all the free Blue Bunny ice cream we have around here.) I've been steadily gaining weight a little bit at a time all year since we knew in January we'd have to be moving. Food therapy, you know. In fact, I may very well have gained back all the weight I lost two years ago during "Godspell". (I don't know, because our bathroom scale isn't working.) That's depressing.

And the holidays are coming up, with all the goodies involved with that. I gotta find an adult dance class around here soon . .