2017-09-08 16:01
Hello all! I know it has been a long time, but I just wanted to redirect anyone who came to this site to a new blog, Messy Mapmaker. While it will still have family stories and gardening sto… Read More
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Recipe In A Bottle – Connecting To Friends, Old Blog
eating2016.wordpress.com
Connecting to Friends, Old and New, Through Recipes and Dinner Parties
2017-09-06 16:48
Hello all! I know it has been a long time, but I just wanted to redirect anyone who came to this site to a new blog, Messy Mapmaker. While it will still have family stories and gardening sto… Read More
2017-05-24 18:16
It’s been a good long while since I posted last, but I recently experienced a story that was so perfect for the blog that I thought I’d hop back on here to let you all know about… Read More
2017-03-31 13:07
It’s been a couple weeks since I updated here. Things have been busy in life, but I’m also transitioning away from this blog, even though writing about food is basically the best… Read More
2017-03-03 13:34
I was at my friend J’s apartment near the beach, and we’d spent the day dilly-dallying, and we were half-watching the Oscars… this was almost 4 years ago to the day.
I ha… Read More
2017-03-02 13:55
Do you get in a rut? I definitely do. I think of it as a time in my life when I’m lacking in bravery; not bravery overall, but bravery in a particular spot.
In my crafting life, I&rsqu&hell…Read More
2017-03-01 23:20
Life seems to be conspiring to teach me patience.
Sickness? Slows me down. Makes me wait. Makes me rest.
Scheduling Conflicts? Makes me not get what I want. Makes me feel useless.
Grief? Ma… Read More
2017-03-01 14:52
This picture was taken in the most vibrant weekend of October; two close friends had come to visit and we went to a park where people had used trees and vines to create an elaborate shelter… Read More
2017-02-28 20:39
Memory: a work lunch where, with my two co-workers, we order dessert. I very, very rarely order dessert at a restaurant, and no wonder; there’s enough calories in a dessert to be a wh… Read More
2017-02-28 17:15
Husband and I have changed small things about our eating habits over the years, but the big one has been adding in a little fish where we were eating pretty much no fish. I’ve become… Read More
2017-02-27 18:49
For a few years now, I’ve been struggling with more. I want to work more, write more, and do more. I want to cook more, clean more, talk to others more, listen more.
I don’t ofte… Read More
2017-02-27 16:05
In a month of health problems, grief, and overwhelming amounts of work, Husband and I took a weekend in a nearby city to cut the stress and try to recover a bit. I wasn’t feeling my b… Read More
2017-02-26 12:28
When I want to be healthy, as in not eat a pile of pasta, it’s wonderful to throw a spaghetti squash in to roast if I have the time. It is fun to put all the traditional pasta topping… Read More
2017-02-25 21:17
Because of a family funeral, I’ve been on the road for days now. One unexpected surprise, among many, was the visit to the Bob Evans Farm, which is in Ohio and is the original Bob Eva… Read More
2017-02-24 19:09
A friend posted this article recently, http://www.sarahwilson.com/2016/09/8-bits-of-plastic-you-can-quit-right-now/, and it reminded me all over of how important it is to me that I not… Read More
2017-02-23 16:01
My boss is one of the people who initially inspired me to try Whole30. She takes it seriously in a way that I sometimes find intimidating; basically, she thinks that as participants in Whole… Read More
2017-02-23 13:43
I’m well aware that running is hard on my body – it seems to constantly leave me with some form of ache or pain. I decided that a good thing to try might be eating more toward t… Read More
2017-02-22 12:19
In the wake of the Presidential election, I’m even more thoughtful about community building and neighborliness than before. It’s easy to assume the country is close and united w… Read More
2017-02-22 11:11
I’ve clung to company lately – my carpool buddy C, my co-workers, even the many students I work with, and of course Husband. I cling to nearby friends and acquaintances, always t… Read More
2017-02-21 16:28
I love breakfast food – I mean, pancakes? Waffles? Bacon? All the fanciest and tastiest of breakfast foods are wonderful to me. When it comes to everyday, average breakfasts, though… Read More
2017-02-21 14:05
Interesting Thoughts!
Wilted Wisdom
I started counting calories again today.
Even the phrase ‘counting calories’ tends to elicit an extreme response from the general public, esp… Read More
2017-02-21 12:18
The weather has turned cold and the leaves have turned crunchy and I’m thinking, as the last of my tomato vines shiver out in their boxes, about next year.
I think that daydreaming abo… Read More
2017-02-20 14:36
We have talked and talked about how we’re going to make our garden bigger this year; even with all the missteps last year, we still yielded a lot of pounds of food and this year promi… Read More
2017-02-20 12:12
This is a repost, but I think it is still important; I still have ads, but still make almost nothing off of them, and I still think people have the right to like, dislike, block, or avoid ad… Read More
2017-02-19 12:10
There is an author, Tamora Pierce, who created a young adults book series all about magic. One of the ways magic worked was that a character could weave the magic into a blanket or a quilt o… Read More
2017-02-18 12:00
This book I’ve been reading, Daring Greatly, talks about two different kinds of stress responses: in one case, people try to manage their circumstances such that all the stress i… Read More
2017-02-17 13:15
I grew up eating a lot of food cooked in butter, toast covered in butter – it was the oil of my childhood in the South! But in the past few years, especially living in Madrid, I became… Read More
2017-02-16 14:07
I’ve been reading a new book! This gardening book, as opposed to a lot of others I’ve looked at, seems geared to be a reference guide for a home gardener, not something to be re… Read More
2017-02-15 18:08
I spend a lot of this blog talking about how much I want to eat out less, spend more time cooking, know more about the origins of my food, etc. While all of those things are definitely true… Read More
2017-02-14 15:04
Because I was still recovering from the sniffles this morning, Husband set up my present for me before I came downstairs: a cookbook! It looks wonderful and I wanted to share it with yo… Read More
2017-02-12 16:55
Every year does not give me breaks in February, but this year, I needed them. Yesterday, rather than being buried under snow and ice, we had breezy 63 degree weather and sunshine over the ri… Read More
2017-02-12 14:25
One really decadent food kept coming to me while we were on Whole30 – I’m sure everyone while on this journey has something of the kind. I wanted baked brie: I wanted the flaky… Read More
2017-02-11 15:59
Saturday morning has been like the breath after a storm lately, the only time of the week when I don’t notice how long I am working on something, or how long I have to get up and get r… Read More
2017-02-10 14:24
I haven’t been very innovative in my cooking lately, but these 6 things get me through the busy weeks with my sanity intact. What 6 things make your kitchen function?
frozen chicken br… Read More
2017-02-09 13:29
I don’t really talk about clothing on this blog – not exactly connected to cooking! – but lately, I’ve been really experiencing a life change because of the 333 proje… Read More
2017-02-08 14:14
I love the idea of taste-testing these snacks that came with my Match Made Coffee subscription box, sharing bits and bites with Husband, but that’s not how it ended up happening this… Read More
2017-02-07 16:16
My first return to the New best bread ever – easy-to-make Peasant Bread recipe after Whole30 yielded a gorgeous loaf, with all the caramelizing edge of the bowl from the rea… Read More
2017-02-06 16:08
We don’t have an espresso machine (probably the only piece of coffee related paraphernalia that we don’t own…) but there was some ground espresso in the Match Made Coffee… Read More
2017-02-05 11:54
It’s funny how a break from all sweets can make you appreciate really good ones. On Friday, I tried a morsel of catering-company rice cereal treat – it was not bad, not at a… Read More
2017-02-04 20:48
One Sunday afternoon, Husband and I were trying to get the motivation to power through the 2pm slump and somewhat failing – blame potatoes and chicken-and-apple sausage from lunch, I… Read More
2017-02-03 16:08
Today, I am making quinoa salad for the first time in a long time; it qualifies, in my mind, as a very healthy food, but it was forbidden based on the no-legumes-or-grains part of the Whole3… Read More
2017-02-02 18:12
Husband and I have completed Whole30! He’s been more committed than I have to the process of reintegration, whereby you add a single item back to your diet (legumes, sugar, dairy, etc… Read More
2017-02-01 20:37
Husband and I made our first cups of San Diego Coffee Company brew on Sunday morning, during the two hours we often spend before going to church, usually reading and cooking bacon and using… Read More
2017-01-30 20:28
On Friday, we did our first hosting of the Whole30 month – simple hosting, but still! We had a couple over, E and J, who have been friends with us for almost a year and a half now &nda&hell…Read More
2017-01-29 20:19
I have often thought that it would be nice to be able to get to know new foods and drinks through the “subscription service” model; I even tried it once when my sister gave me a… Read More
2017-01-25 15:01
When I make hash browns, they tend to be sorta soggy and fall apart, so I looked at a lot of online suggestions for avoiding this problem, and I came to this strategy:
I grate the potatoes o… Read More
2017-01-22 14:52
I’ve now survived my 3rd weekend of Whole30, which means I feel like I know what I need to make a successful week. It does require work, but I’ve been really satisfied with my ha… Read More
2017-01-19 14:31
We were craving crunch – something that I think is pretty common on Whole30. I think for long stretches of time about the combination of soft and crispy that bread does so well and so… Read More
2017-01-18 12:45
My best days so far on Whole30 have been the days when I have very specific plans for every meal. This is hard, because I’m out of the house 11-12 hours a day, and so anything that isn… Read More
2017-01-16 14:12
I don’t actually like or crave eggs very often, which means that that it is hard sometimes to find variety on Whole30 – veggies are various, but inexpensive meat is pretty much r… Read More
2017-01-13 14:34
It’s hard to find foods that really satisfy all the many sensations we’ve come to expect – something crispy, something sweet, something savory, something hearty and flavorf… Read More
2017-01-11 14:22
There are other good reasons to do Whole30 besides trying to find new food habits. It’s been really great for the marriage too! Yeah, I had visions of us both being crabby and hungry a… Read More
2017-01-11 02:03
Hello again – Happy 2017! It’s been a week and a half, and after months of daily posts, it has felt… well, it’s felt new. This was my first time cooling it on bloggi… Read More
2016-12-31 19:25
My family are not big partiers, and they don’t need a lot to keep them entertained. I have great memories of how we all often stayed up till midnight when growing up to watch music an… Read More
2016-12-30 16:20
I think too many of us envision cooking as the cooking-show version: a row of delicate ramekins full of pre-measured, pre-seasoned, pre-cut foods ready to be poured artfully into a mixer or… Read More
2016-12-28 16:35
I sometimes think about the composite parts of things we think are appropriate for breakfast – starches in toast, cheese in omelettes, sugar in muffins. For some reason, cupcakes aren… Read More
2016-12-27 20:12
Do you ever read something, and have it remind you of a good meal? I stumbled upon Shauna Niequist’s Bread and Wine, and it has me thinking of macaroni and cheese. Sure, there are two… Read More
2016-12-26 19:39
My friend LJ graciously allowed me to stay in her home for 4 nights when I had a conference in her town; this graciousness was especially amazing because her first child was only 5 weeks ol… Read More
2016-12-25 15:52
I get hits on this blog because of the title, like anyone, but one thing seems to be a little deceptive – people come here looking for those soup mixes and cookie mixes that look cute… Read More
2016-12-24 16:34
One time, Husband and I stayed at an AirBnB, an accommodation where people rent out a spare room for a night or two. It was inexpensive, and these people were so kind while still being so b… Read More
2016-12-23 19:29
The combination of rain and sunshine didn’t do our bell peppers that well this year, but in early October a few late and small peppers came from the plant before frosts took it. They… Read More
2016-12-22 20:46
I haven’t written a lot of new things lately. I still post, short food memories and reposts of old recipes, but I’ve been feeling a bit frosted over these last few weeks –… Read More
2016-12-21 19:41
Even though many people don’t think it is a delicious food at all, the best comfort food for Husband is Cincinnati chili, a meat sauce with twinges of cinnamon and chocolate that is s… Read More
2016-12-20 20:24
My friend S insisted on making traditional Chinese food for me, my friend E, and Husband a few years ago, and it was so good – authentic, simple flavors and textures, with hints of vi… Read More
2016-12-19 20:12
One of my favorite things about knowing people from all over is that when we happen to be passing through a town or city, I can text someone and ask “where should we eat here?”… Read More
2016-12-18 20:05
Nothing feels quite so “whole” as putting a few chunks of burger meat, a strip of bacon, and a bunch of coarse-chopped veggies in a piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil and cooking… Read More
2016-12-17 20:42
The memory of how truly awful me and my friends are at music trivia is nicely overshadowed by the memory that we tried, that same evening, the most decadent food known to man: pecan-candied… Read More
2016-12-16 18:32
2014 was a hard year for my in-laws in some ways, because of losses of beloved members of the family. However, there were also ways in which the year was incredibly sweet, because in loss t… Read More
2016-12-15 20:26
Most people don’t love sitting on the curb to eat their meal out of a paper-board box, but when it’s part of a food truck rally, it becomes a much more exotic notion. While trav… Read More
2016-12-14 20:20
In Asheville, NC, there is a barbecue joint open only for lunch, where you order at the counter and seat yourself, serve your own sauce, and everything they make is heavenly. The pulled por… Read More
2016-12-14 13:46
One of the best summer jobs I’ve had was a job where I worked with a music therapist, translating her lessons into Spanish. I got to know people with totally different lives from mine… Read More
2016-12-13 20:14
One of my college roommates, E, got married 2.5 years ago, and this picture of bags of marching cupcakes down the hall in her home reminds me of how much food plays an integral part in soci… Read More
2016-12-13 13:45
In preparing for a dinner party (which has yet to happen; rescheduling was necessary), I made dinner for Husband as a chance to try a difficult trick. Any dinner that requires two frying pan… Read More
2016-12-12 21:05
I have an ache in my heart pretty much constantly for the beauty and restlessness of the ocean; during the winter, it gets even more acute. This memory is extra special: after a long day on… Read More
2016-12-12 13:45
The whole H family have been in and out of my life since I met Husband. They are his aunt, uncle, and cousins, and they are fun – always with a smile, a story about recent travels, a k… Read More
2016-12-11 21:00
I ate this savory egg-filled crepe on top of a mountain by Husband, who was then Boyfriend. I think part of why I feel so at rest when visiting my now-in-laws is that there is so much good… Read More
2016-12-11 13:43
I write this from my kitchen table on yet another afternoon – it is finally actually warm outside – 70 degrees! – and my friend A, of lentil… Read More
2016-12-10 20:55
My friend M and I tend to be willing to splurge on really wonderful food every once in a while, even if it’s not necessarily the smartest way to spend money. For my birthday, one year… Read More
2016-12-10 14:50
My great grandmother is rather direct; she is originally from Finland and spent years as a missionary before marrying my great grandfather. I remember my childhood visits to her as being pun… Read More
2016-12-09 19:47
It isn’t always better because it’s deep-fried, but the state fair in a Southern state is always going to try to deep-fry whatever you throw at them. I don’t actually enjo… Read More
2016-12-09 14:49
D is a person who understands the need to improvise. He’s travelled to more countries than I can count, and when Husband says, “oh yeah, I talked to D today, he’s going to… Read More
2016-12-08 19:32
Vegetarian food has always intrigued me, but I think of it as cool and light, watery and crunch. I didn’t think, when I thought vegetarian, of ooey-gooey macaroni and cheese, of rich… Read More
2016-12-08 14:47
S and I spent 3 cold, shivery days in Sweden together almost five years ago; I had been lonely and searching for purpose in Spain where I was teaching, and she had been adjusting to a retur… Read More
2016-12-07 19:23
I have tried, extensively, to love salad – it’s good for you and it should just be naturally desired by our bodies, right? No dice for me. Salad is still something I shovel into… Read More
2016-12-07 14:46
I was hosting a dinner on a weeknight, so this was already going to be hard to make work, so I was very grateful that E’s white chicken chili recipe was one of those magical crock-pot… Read More
2016-12-06 21:17
Many of my best talks in graduate school didn’t happen in the classroom – they happened while eating the breakfasts at the Irish themed restaurant in town with E and S. Both of… Read More
2016-12-06 14:45
I have been trying, valiantly, to eat better and less lately, and one of the major ways to do that, it seems, is to take one’s lunch to work. By many estimates, you save dollars ev… Read More
2016-12-05 21:02
My sister doesn’t indulge in eating out often, so the week I joined her in Georgia and we each did homework all day was punctuated by trying most of the exotic restaurants she hadn&rs&helli…Read More
2016-12-05 14:44
S and I have seen each other through a lot: in particular, we’ve each moved upwards of 5 times since we met in high school, and somehow, calling each other and chatting for hours is st… Read More
2016-12-04 18:51
Conferences inspire a somewhat-unnatural efficiency in me – I want to see as much as possible, with the time spent in only the most useful ways. I’m the opposite of a smell-the… Read More
2016-12-04 14:42
Husband is the friendly sort, and invited his two ex girlfriends to the wedding; one of them gave us a recipe for macaroni and cheese. I’d never met her before, but she has a warmth a… Read More
2016-12-03 20:57
J, funnily enough, was my boss for a summer, but she also went to grad school near mine and when I went to visit her, our most treasured tradition was a visit to a wonderful brunch restaura… Read More
2016-12-03 10:26
T and K are some of the happiest people I met in school. Not that they are cheerleader-excited about everything, but just that most of the times that I see them, they are reasonably optimist… Read More
2016-11-30 13:35
I’ve been eating badly for a little while here, and it’s about time for something wholesome – something wholesome like pearl barley casserole! A throwback recipe that quic… Read More
2016-11-29 15:02
This book I’ve been reading, Daring Greatly, talks about two different kinds of stress responses: in one case, people try to manage their circumstances such that all the stress i… Read More
2016-11-28 22:01
Over the break, Husband and I talked about some big picture changes – things like giving up cheese, dairy in general, sugar, and grains for a month! The very idea of that change grew w… Read More
2016-11-27 20:31
This is part of a row of fall greens planted by my sister-in-law and brother-in-law – don’t they look luscious? Husband and I got leaves of salad greens, but never big, lush hea… Read More
2016-11-27 14:22
While making Blueberry Cream Cheese Muffins, I separated out part of the batter and mixed in a cup of roasted pecans. These mini-muffins were the result – they were more pecan th… Read More
2016-11-26 19:55
My friend M and I wanted to try making something special for dinner while I visited her in her adorable duplex with her cat and N, her boyfriend. We played board games and talked and watche… Read More
2016-11-26 13:52
Husband loves crispy, spicy gingersnaps – the thinner and snappier the better. I wanted to make them for him, so I added it to my pre-thanksgiving baking list, but as I was being over… Read More
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