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.