Monday, February 27, 2006

Five Food Challenges



The pictures of my skirt will have to wait until tomorrow, Meg´s tag has inspired me to write about something which has ruled my life for as long as I can remember - FOOD!

It´s only since I´ve started blogging and really thinking about my relationship to food that I am starting to understand it. I am hungry for life, hungry for acceptance and hungry for recognition and I have tried to still this hunger with food. Now I am discovering other ways to fill the void, I am admitting things to myself that I didn´t know before because I hadn´t let the thoughts be real. When I write them here, they become real. Food is finally starting to be what it should be, nourishing for my body and not for my soul. A fuel that enables me to have the energy to do all that I would like to and cooking, another way to be creative.

So, my five food challenges are:

1.Replace more "bad" carbohydrates with "good" ones.

2.Try to buy more "healthy" foods for the family.

3.Try out all those recipes cut out of magazines that are lying around in the 3rd drawer from the top in the kitchen. Throw out the ones that don´t work and put the ones that do in a recipe journal.

4. Before I do my weekly shopping - clean out the fridge, write a list and try a new recipe every week. INSPIRATION HERE.

5. Have a dinner party once a month to catch up with friends.

Above is a photo of my favourite cook books. Recipe books for Asian, Italian, BBQs and children´s favourites. My absolute favourite is "Coffeetime". It´s full of little things to have with coffee, sweet and savoury. There are 2 books which depress me, the first is "Natur Pur" which has recipes and tips for buying biological produce. The tip I couldn´t find is the one telling me how I can afford to shop this way every week. Funny how the farming methods that were once normal are now "biological" and not for everyone´s pocket. Less is more you might say, better quality and less of it - but tell that to my 3 growing, hungry sons. The other book is called "Schmeckt´s noch?" (translated, does it still taste good?). This book was written by a previous food chain manager and he writes about the way food is manipulated, treated and handled before it reaches our supermarket shelves...I should use that as a diet aid...read for half an hour before each meal to reduce appetite!

Consider yourselves tagged Frankie, Jorth, and Hobess.

5 comments:

Jorth said...

How weird - I was just reading this thinking "Eeek - she's linked, oh the pressure is truly on now!" when I got your email telling me I was tagged. Strange, strange, wonderful world!

Jamie said...

I think "Schmeckt´s noch?" is the best title ever. I fell in love with it when I saw the book and had no idea what it meant. I'm sitting here trying to say it to myself and wondering what it sounds like.

What a great idea to include having dinner with friends on your list. What a joyful way to take on this challenge. I might just have to take on that inspiration too!

liz elayne lamoreux said...

this is a great list! and i love the positive focus of it all, including having dinner with friends once a month. I totally relate to the idea of needing to cut out the recipes from the magazines that are taking up space. maybe this will give me the motivation to do it.

Laini Taylor said...

Hey Claudia, I hear you on the organic produce. Eek. There are beautiful stores we would love to shop in with names like Wild Oats and Whole Foods and Nature's -- but they're too expensive. My mom was reading somewhere recently that if you only buy a few things organic, apples should be one of them because they have SO many pesticides on them they can't be washed off even by scrubbing. Also roots like carrots really suck in all the chemicals in the soil. How sick that we have to worry about all this, that a clean planet is such a remote and long-ago thing.

meghan said...

Hi there!

The cookbook that I love the most from my childhood is called 'Food that Really Schmecks" I never knew what it meant but as it's Dutch I bet it's a similar meaning! I really like your list. We are SO lucky here, there is a real upsurge in organic farming & we can get organic veg DELIVERED for cheaper than buying it in the shops. It's such an amazing thing. I hope that someday we can get together for one of the recipes you're cutting out! Have a wonderful day!

P.S. I've lost about 6lbs!! WE CAN DO THIS!!!