Monday, March 26, 2012

"Eating is an affirmation of Life!"



Three years ago, before my son was born, I started a food blog. Mainly I just wanted a dumping ground for archiving some of the things I whip up in the kitchen so that I wasn't constantly having to re-invent the wheel. Especially on the days when I feel so tired that I barely have motivation for much more than a bowl of marshmallow oaties with almond milk. Sadly, I never got past four posts. Hopefully, I'll be more dedicated to this blog.

Why the name of the blog (and title of this first post)? When I was eleven or twelve, my favorite book was Madeline L'Engle's "A Ring of Endless Light". This book deals a lot with family and life and death and how to find joy even amid great sadness. This is the context for the quote "eating is an affirmation of life". I loved the idea then, and I love it now. My expressions of joy and love are very entwined with food and cooking, for myself and others. But beyond that, I think life itself should be eaten in large gulps with great relish. I don't always remember to do that. Especially when my 20-month-old son goes for 2 months straight waking up sometime between 3-5 am and starting his day. (Boy does HE know how to eat life!!). So maybe part of the intention of this blog is to remind myself, if not on a daily (remember the one post/year rate of my last blog), then at least a weekly basis. I'd like to expand this blog beyond just what I'm cooking in the kitchen to what I'm cooking up in my life in general - my garden, my son, my marriage, my creative work outside my family...

If memory is fleeting, mine lasts about a nanosecond. And the idea of forever losing all the rich moments in my life right now because I didn't take a moment to document them makes me sad. So here I am.

And here we are (at least Taran and I, I'll have to get my husband, Joe in the picture next time) planting our first crop of vegetables for the year - in early March!! It's been such a strange warm winter/spring. Although, of course, tonight is supposed to drop into the twenties so I'll be running home early from work to cover up the little sproutlings. That's what we got for being over-ambitious with the planting. This is our third year in the house and our third garden and every year it takes up a little more of our backyard. Last year we had watermelons which completely ran amok. This year we've planted peas, carrots, beets, turnips, rapini. Our strawberries and blueberry bushes seem have survived the winter and bear, if not fruit, then promise of sticky chins and red/purple stains. We have purple potatoes and heirloom tomatoes, Thai eggplant and Japanese pepper, baby kale sweet dumpling squash and poona kheera cucumbers all waiting for their moment to set roots in our weed strewn, sunny backyard. Just the thought makes me smile.

5 comments:

  1. Lovely! You know, I love Madeline L'Engle and A Ring of Endless Light was always a favorite. Not surprisingly, we have yet another thing in common.

    Your blog is a great idea and i eagerly look forward to your next post. Good luck staying motivated to keep up with it. :-)

    Linda

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  2. Yay! I love your witty, playful, joyous and sometimes silly sarcastic self! Your writing has always felt like a breath of fresh air, a break from my fast paced stress. Keep 'em comin!

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  3. Linda - you are my first follower! Yay! I'm so glad you liked the first post. I hate that most of my family and friends are so far away so it's nice to have a way to keep you all regularly updated on how this little Columbus clan is faring.

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  4. Anna - Stop it Sis, you're making me blush. I'm just glad you like it. xoxo

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  5. Wow! You just became a kindred young sister to me. Without ever meeting you, I know your beauty,for people like Anna and you,to me are what makes the life worth to stick around.. Reading your block reminded me there is hope for better times than what we are in right now.

    Thank you! Keep writing so we can eat this like in delight!
    dilmeran Akgoze,

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