What food means in this house #BAD11 #FoodDay

Food is more than just food in this house.  It's been a way for me to connect with my family.  I never would have guessed that 3 little boys would love helping their mom in the kitchen, but they do.... and I have found that I adore having them with me.  I knew from when they were just crumb crunchers scooting around on the floor that I wanted them to learn how to cook so that they wouldn't starve when they went off to college, but I didn't know that it was going to be a fun time for us to bond and grow as a family.  Who knew that teaching life skills would be just as valuable to me as it is to them.  You can catch up with some of my food related posts here:

Brownie Making Day

Breakfast Casserole Recipe

My favorite Malbec wine

Death by Chocolate recipe

Iron Chef and foodporn

My review of Food Network Magazine

My wine indulgence

We might have gotten the neighbors talking

We have an interesting ritual in this house.  Every Saturday afternoon, at 5 PM, we (me and the peeps) plop down in front of the TV to watch Iron Chef America.  I'm not really sure how this started, except that they like to help me cook, and I'm quite willing to encourage that habit.  Normally, hubby isn't home by then, but as luck would have it, he rolled in at 4:55 last Saturday. 

Now, in case you're never watched an episode, it's two chefs going against each other in a food battle stadium style.  They only have an hour to prepare 5 courses, and by the way, you have to use a secret ingredient in every course that we just unveiled to you 3 seconds ago. 

Now me and the peeps talk about the show during the day.  We try to guess what the secret ingredient is going to be and mimic some of those moves that Mark Dacascos puts on at the beginning of the show.(Who knew you could get a work out watching this show?)

As the show revealed the secret ingredient, the oohs and aahs coming from our living room got any of our neighbors within earshot wondering if we were watching a porno.  We were, sort of...food porn that is.  You see, the secret ingredient was.....

CHEESE!

Oh yes, this house LOVES its cheese.  The secret ingredient was gruyere to be exact.  I immediately began fantasizing about fondue and hubby was alive with anticipation about what gruyere and a strip steak could be doing together.  (Oh, you nasty boy you!)

Oh yes, we're crazy married people with kids in a college town.  Don't worry, we were in bed AND asleep by 9:30.

Giving #foodthanks

Food doesn’t just happen. It takes an incredible number of caring, thoughtful, hard-working individuals to provide the three square meals we enjoy every day. From farmer to processor to truck driver to chef to retailer, millions work hard to provide our food.


Those people deserve our thanks, especially during the Thanksgiving holiday.


I want to personally thank each and every person for helping to provide the food myself and my family will consume tomorrow for our Thanksgiving meal.  I know there are a lot of hands involved and my thanks go to every one of you.  Thank you for providing a safe, affordable, nutritious product.

Regardless of who produced your food or how it got to you, I hope we can agree that they all deserve our thanks.  As you sit down for your Thanksgiving meal tomorrow, please remember to give #foodthanks.

P.S.  For those of you on twitter, #foodthanks is the hashtag to express your gratitude there as well.

Some down time from jewelry making

I had family in town for a few days to visit.  They were also wine drinkers and I always love trying out new wine.  My favorite new wine that I tried was Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc, a white from New Zealand.  It had some quite fragrant pear notes to it and it paired well with the goat cheese we also enjoyed as an appetizer.  I almost always prefer red wine, but in this hot weather, a nice chilled white wine seems to hit the spot.  I'm looking forward to picking this one up the next time I'm through my favorite wine shop.