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I have all but abandoned my blog. February. That was my last post. Since then I have started working out and managed a few personal crises that, truly, I will not comment on here because I am actually pretending that people are reading this blog. I'll go on with it, even though probably no one in the free world is aware yet, except my BFF Denise, who has her own fish to fry this minute. (Mmmm, wonder if the family would eat fish...?)

Anyhoo, like many other things, blog-keeping requires diligence and consistency, two things that are really hard to come by when the more pressing needs of locating Barbie shoes and managing "Wii time" are in front of me. I cannot pretend to have life all together. Getting dinner is not that easy. But I will say that carving out time for a workout is making a huge difference for me, as well as keeping me off Zoloft. Seriously.

A food blog was my intent, but as with all food experiences, it is impossible to talk about food without talking about relationships. So that's where I will go. I will incorporate my attempts at cooking real meals for my family into my attempts at having real intimacy with my family. They are a good bunch and they deserve both.

Losing steam...but I think I can, I think I can...

It's been a month since my last post. Thank God no one but my dear, dear friend Denise is a follower or I would feel pressured to write often. But since I usually call Denise and chat while I make dinner anyway, my guilt is for naught.

I have certainly not abandoned my cooking resolution. But the past few weeks, it has taken a hit. Lots of crazy in Walker World, so the cooking didn't always translate. However, I have had a few highly successful meals that I will use again: Keilbasa with Cheese Grits, Caribbean Chicken with Pinapple-Black Bean Sauce and the Feta-Cranberry burger (which my husband passed on and decorated his burger with bacon and mayo, like a real man. Even though it was super-delicious. I'm just sayin'.)

The next five days will be an adventure, as I'm scraping by until payday, when I can get all the ingredients I want for any recipe and not worry that we need to survive on Aldi brand ritz crackers and cheese whiz or the kid's leftover Halloween candy, which I have surrendered and no longer use anyway. But that is a story for another day...

Until the next delicious meal, or until I remember to stay up late blogging, eat well!

The Sophomore Effort

This was my second full week of cooking at home. I must say, the first week went swimmingly. I cooked some really good stuff: pork chops and warm black-eyed pea salad, peanut chicken, parmeasan penne pasta with ham, mozzarella chicken sandwiches with Italian BBQ sauce, a homemade apple pie, and homemade brownies. I received lots of kudos from my husband. My children begged for ham and cheese sandwiches everyday until today when I made regular old spaghetti and they ate it all with no complaints!

I am pleased with our eating at home effort. We have eaten out once as a family so far this month and it did seem like a bigger deal than when we did it everyday or so. This second week of cooking was still good, but a little slower. Everything in the world seems slower this week. People I know are hurting and sick and lonely, plus the whole world is just looking at Haiti in disbelief, trying to grasp the heinous devastation that rules there now. Suddenly, trying to create a weeks' worth of brand new meals and putting a rush on my new Rachael Ray magazine aren't priorities. I may still do those things, and that's okay. But this next big grocery shop with be with a clear sense of gratitude for my most basic needs, that are met with barely an acknowledgement. I have plenty of water, shelter, enough to eat, and the knowledge that my children are all safe in bed, dreaming of nothing remotely close to the nightmares Haitian children cannot escape, even in sleep.

When we gather at our family table and give thanks for our meal, I will be aware of the reality of the grace we say. Even if it is over the usual ham and cheese sandwiches.

Should old acquaintances be forgot

It's January 1, 2010 and so begins the Walker family's attempt to eat real food, at home, at the table, using utensils, et al. I grocery-shopped today for a weeks worth of dinners, looking for items such as escarole and arugula. I bought sun-dried tomatoes, extra-virgin olive oil (heretofore referred to by Rachel Ray--my new hero--as EVOO) and fresh mozarella and parmeasan cheeses. I am excited about cooking and hope the meals this week will be a marked change from the standard Walker fare.

But I know what I'm up against. We are leaving the world of processed food and drive-thru convenience and entering that much-feared area of the perimeter of the grocery, the outside aisles. My families' taste buds, I fear, are all-too conditioned to crave the two main ingredients of the American diet: high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oil. I must admit to some fear that after cooking a meal that consists mostly of whole foods with actual nutritional value, that someone (read: my husband) will pine for several tablespoons of corn-syrupy, cheap barbeque sauce to drown its flavor and goodness.

My first official home-cooked meal of the decade will commence tomorrow evening in the form of Peanut Chicken over brown rice. Each night this week I have a delicious and nutritious meal planned for the Walker five, and have jumped in with both feet to even invite the preacher over on Sunday for Pork Chops with Black-eyed Pea Salad.

In an extra-brave twist to the story, I have also parted company with refined sugar. I am not quite willing to end it all with flour, but will use whole grains wherever possible, and have chosen to abstain from sugar, particularly in the form of desserts. If you want to know what I am like in the middle of a sugar detox, please pick up your local newspaper and refer to any section detailing activities in downtown Fallujh.

Wish me luck, dear readers, wherever you are. Probably eating a big fat quarter pounder and ordering a Reece's Sonic Blast or Java Chiller. Damn it.