Hi there! It has been pretty quiet around here, and I will explain why.
Notes:
On the whole, January has been a rough month. There were the weeks of illness, normal growing pains for my little one at school, an incident in which my husband scratched our neighbors' car (and it turns out this neighbor is a very anxious person who has never, in his very long life, had to deal with car insurance, so he has been coming over to our house regularly to stress and try to get Jeff more involved than anyone should have to be, once they start paying their insurance premiums) and then the month ended with my computer crashing, and me having to erase my hard drive, possibly losing all of the photos from the last 3 years. That was kind of traumatic.
These are all small problems in the grand scheme of things, but it is very fair to say that I've had better months. Let's move on, shall we?... But before we do, I have to tell you, once again, that people can be so wonderful. When I told my butcher about my recipe for breakfast sausage, he sent me home with a little grinder/ sausage making machine, and some casings, so I could do it properly. I will have a lot of fun with that! More poigniantly, after I had my photos erased, a friend we met in Paris two years ago sent me his album of pictures of our visit. So kind, right? And now of course I have to show you a few favorites!
Some exciting things are going on around here!
This is the month that I will be starting my monthly newsletter! I am looking forward to connecting in this way, and sending special links, news bits and updates on a regular basis. As soon as I put the little sign-up box in the upper right corner, many of you jumped right in and signed up! I enjoyed that. If you would like to be on this newsletter mailing list, you can go over there, or click here to get started. You can also get my posts in your inbox through feedburner.
I am thinking about doing regular Amazon giveaways. Would you like that?
Alright, so I don't have much of a sweet tooth myself, but I am going to be posting more about desserts here. Why? Because my daughter, who has a list of food sensitivities, is struggling with the fact that she sees kids eating sweets and treats all of the time. It's hard having allergies and not getting to eat a lot of staples (like bread!) I don't want to make things worse by making her feel that treats are also off-limits. Still, I struggle with the amount of non-food ingredients in typical sweets that you buy at the store, and that are served at her school. So I am on a quest to make more sweets and treats at home. My aim with this is also to expose her to the flavors of real, high quality desserts, so that the junk food outside won't have the same allure for her. I have heard from quite a few of you on facebook that you are also needing more ideas for keeping kids with allergies happy. I have five years of experience now of working around certain food types, and maybe I can help! We have been making a lot of terrific ice cream here in the last couple of weeks, and I also have a couple of allergy-friendly dessert cookbooks to tell you about. So stay tuned for that, and please let me know if there's anyting in particular you are interested in learning more about.
Alright, are you ready for some good reads? Since I've already been so chatty, I'll be very succinct with these!
Links:
Awesome photo project about grandmas' cooking all over the world. LOVED THIS.
People can literally smell fear. And other emotions. Humans are so cool.
Screwy Portraits. So unique!
I didn't get out in the snow much this month, but I'm glad someone else did!
Carrot tops are edible! I did not know this. I will start eating them.
London on a budget. Good to know!
What food gifts to bring French people from America. Super interesting.
The case for a minimalist lifestyle. Very good points.
Along those same lines, some practical applications: Radical Simplicity.
A survival guide for parents of picky eaters. I know a lot of you will appreciate this!
An inspiring story about a mom who reversed her son's asthma through diet. So exciting.
Preserved lemons were the first fermented food I ever made, before I even knew about the nutritional benefits of fermentation-- they just taste so awesome! Here's how to make preserved lemons yourself.
And now, I have a small favor to ask you. If you are a reader of Apartment Therapy or The Kitchn, I would love it if you could hop over to their Homies nomination page, and give And Here We Are... a vote for Best Healthy Cooking Blog. That would mean so much to me!
Alright, that does it! I am looking forward to getting back to posting here this week-- I have missed it. Have you read anything especially interesting or inspiring lately?
PAID ENDORSEMENT DISCLOSURE: In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog.
Notes:
On the whole, January has been a rough month. There were the weeks of illness, normal growing pains for my little one at school, an incident in which my husband scratched our neighbors' car (and it turns out this neighbor is a very anxious person who has never, in his very long life, had to deal with car insurance, so he has been coming over to our house regularly to stress and try to get Jeff more involved than anyone should have to be, once they start paying their insurance premiums) and then the month ended with my computer crashing, and me having to erase my hard drive, possibly losing all of the photos from the last 3 years. That was kind of traumatic.
These are all small problems in the grand scheme of things, but it is very fair to say that I've had better months. Let's move on, shall we?... But before we do, I have to tell you, once again, that people can be so wonderful. When I told my butcher about my recipe for breakfast sausage, he sent me home with a little grinder/ sausage making machine, and some casings, so I could do it properly. I will have a lot of fun with that! More poigniantly, after I had my photos erased, a friend we met in Paris two years ago sent me his album of pictures of our visit. So kind, right? And now of course I have to show you a few favorites!
 |
| Photo Credits: Pierre-Yves Boyer |
And now I want to go back to Paris!
And I miss those chubby little cheeks! Ok, now I'm ready to move on!
News:Some exciting things are going on around here!
This is the month that I will be starting my monthly newsletter! I am looking forward to connecting in this way, and sending special links, news bits and updates on a regular basis. As soon as I put the little sign-up box in the upper right corner, many of you jumped right in and signed up! I enjoyed that. If you would like to be on this newsletter mailing list, you can go over there, or click here to get started. You can also get my posts in your inbox through feedburner.
I am thinking about doing regular Amazon giveaways. Would you like that?
Alright, so I don't have much of a sweet tooth myself, but I am going to be posting more about desserts here. Why? Because my daughter, who has a list of food sensitivities, is struggling with the fact that she sees kids eating sweets and treats all of the time. It's hard having allergies and not getting to eat a lot of staples (like bread!) I don't want to make things worse by making her feel that treats are also off-limits. Still, I struggle with the amount of non-food ingredients in typical sweets that you buy at the store, and that are served at her school. So I am on a quest to make more sweets and treats at home. My aim with this is also to expose her to the flavors of real, high quality desserts, so that the junk food outside won't have the same allure for her. I have heard from quite a few of you on facebook that you are also needing more ideas for keeping kids with allergies happy. I have five years of experience now of working around certain food types, and maybe I can help! We have been making a lot of terrific ice cream here in the last couple of weeks, and I also have a couple of allergy-friendly dessert cookbooks to tell you about. So stay tuned for that, and please let me know if there's anyting in particular you are interested in learning more about.
Alright, are you ready for some good reads? Since I've already been so chatty, I'll be very succinct with these!
Links:
Awesome photo project about grandmas' cooking all over the world. LOVED THIS.
People can literally smell fear. And other emotions. Humans are so cool.
Screwy Portraits. So unique!
I didn't get out in the snow much this month, but I'm glad someone else did!
Carrot tops are edible! I did not know this. I will start eating them.
London on a budget. Good to know!
What food gifts to bring French people from America. Super interesting.
The case for a minimalist lifestyle. Very good points.
Along those same lines, some practical applications: Radical Simplicity.
A survival guide for parents of picky eaters. I know a lot of you will appreciate this!
An inspiring story about a mom who reversed her son's asthma through diet. So exciting.
Preserved lemons were the first fermented food I ever made, before I even knew about the nutritional benefits of fermentation-- they just taste so awesome! Here's how to make preserved lemons yourself.
And now, I have a small favor to ask you. If you are a reader of Apartment Therapy or The Kitchn, I would love it if you could hop over to their Homies nomination page, and give And Here We Are... a vote for Best Healthy Cooking Blog. That would mean so much to me!
Alright, that does it! I am looking forward to getting back to posting here this week-- I have missed it. Have you read anything especially interesting or inspiring lately?
PAID ENDORSEMENT DISCLOSURE: In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog.
I've voted :-)
ReplyDeleteSorry you've had a rough month- here's hoping February will be better.
I'm struggling with my eldest and treats and diet in general at the moment (lots of reasons I think- age, peer pressure, the joy of grandparents who want to 'treat' their grandchildren constantly) so all I can do is hope that this is a phase and what she eats at home will pay off in the long run...
I do make lots of fruit leather, which my youngest especially enjoys, especially the summer berry versions.
The most inspiring thing I've read lately is James Wong's _Homegrown Revolution_. It makes me want to order lots of new plants and seeds for the garden! I heard him speak at Ryton Gardens and he was fantastic. It was potato day, but his main point was that potatoes are a world staple by fluke of history and there are lots of other things we could grow as or more easily (no problems like blight) in this country. So this year is going to be full of oca, sweet potato, and yacon! Oh, and I'll be eating dahlia bulbs in the autumn...
I'm also reading _Fat Chance_ by Dr Robert Lustig about the effect sugar has in our diet, but that's a book I need to concentrate on when I read!
Hi Hazel! Thanks for sharing about what you've been reading. I will definitely look up Homegrown Revolution! I have a lot of respect for Dr. Lustig. I have read pieces by him and watch video interviews, etc., but I haven't read that book. It seems like the sweets thing gets harder as Amelia gets older, and our family culture is not her only influence any more. They eat dessert every single day at her Montessori school, and also hand out cookies/ biscuits in after care. This seems really weird to me, but I think that "pudding" is a very British cultural thing. The idea of getting dessert after every lunch is totally outrageous to me! And I think most kids have it after dinner, as well. I'm trying not to clamp down and make it an obsession for her, so trying to participate and "beat" the junk food with super-delicious home made treats is my best plan of attack so far. Even though I'd prefer that sweets were simply occasionally enjoyed.
DeleteI understand about your little one needing to feel like she is eating what her peers are.My boys went through the same thing because I would not buy the boxed junk.But once their friends realized how yummy my homemade treats were my boys suddenly had trading power at lunch time.Luckily my boys didn't want to trade for the store bought junk their friends ate,they had no taste for it.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the grandma slide link you posted.I love seeing homes from other parts of the world.I wish more of them would have shown the kitchen or where the woman did her cooking.And did you notice how colorful the dishes were? How could you not want to eat grandma's food?
Rois, I love that you did managed to win your boys over to the homemade treats, so much so that they didn't care for the alternatives. That is definitely my goal here! Amelia has never eaten fast food, and I was pretty proud when she rejected the chicken nugget sample at Trader Joe's when she was 2. That stuff just doesn't taste very good when you are used to eating actual food.
DeleteAnd the grandma's cooking link was my favorite, too-- I just wanted to step right into the pictures and watch these ladies cook!
Hi Ariana! I've missed your blog posts, so it was fun to open my email and see you here! Sounds like January was a bit of a bumpy ride! I hope things have calmed down a bit!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the grandma cooks slideshow. Two things I found interesting were the little, itty, bitty kitchens some people have! We are so spoiled here in America! The other thing, which breaks my heart, was to see the fake oils these women were using. Western civilization and our fake oils have ruined everything. You know darn well these women's grandmothers weren't using fats out of a plastic bottle!
Hi Susan. It's nice to be missed-- thank you! Here's to a much better month, and more posts! I agree with you about both aspects of the grandmas' kitchens. How sad that they have been convinced to use junky ingredients, in hopes of nurturing their families. And yes-- the kitchens in the US are very big! It's amazing how much amazing food can be cooked in a tiny space. I wish I could have visited each one in person...
DeleteHere's to a better February!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Tanya!!
DeleteSo sorry to hear of your travails!
ReplyDeleteI loved your Paris photos. I wonder if there is any way to recover some others? I am in no way a computer expert so cannot offer any tips.
I have just received a copy of "Wheat Belly." My hubby and I are going to try following the diet in the book and see if it really makes a difference. I am willing to try almost anything to reduce the inflammation and pain of osteoarthritis. The author maintains that today's "modern" wheat, which was modified beyond recognition in the 60's and 70's for convenience and increased yield, is causing most of our health problems today.
Sometimes I think that there will not be any food left that is not modified in some way for profit. I despair. But...we are continuing to try to increase the kinds of food we grow ourselves. That is, if we can find seeds that have not been modified!
Hi Caterina, I have heard a lot about Wheat Belly. We stopped eating grains over two years ago, and have hardly looked back. We all feel so much better, so much more chemically/ emotionally stable. My daughter started sleeping well for the first time in her life, and for the first six months was sleeping 13+ hours a day, after a short lifetime of sleep deprivation. I know everyone responds differently to various foods, but I definitely support anyone who wants to experiment with taking it out of their diet! I feel your pain with the food supply. That is one reason that I choose to live in Europe, although we are not totally free from these worries over here, as well. There has been talk recently of the UK introducing GM crops, and I am horrified! I hope you can find some really great resources locally, people who are putting in the extra effort to grow clean food in sustainable ways. Do not give up!
Delete