Why I'm Here

Does anybody really read food labels anymore? To be completely honest, I never used to worry about it......then I had my sons. All these voices in the media trying to grab people's attention about what we are actually putting in our bodies started to get louder and louder in my head. With two parents working full time and all of life's other commitments, I fell into the same trap as so many other busy American moms. Convenience. It didn't occur to me what an issue it had become until I had a 4 year old who wouldn't eat chicken that wasn't nugget shaped and basically lived on fresh fruit and boxed macaroni and cheese.

I've always loved to cook, there just never seemed to be enough hours in the day. It didn't make it any easier that I worked mostly nights and weekends running the bar at a once very popular neighborhood hangout. When my youngest son entered pre-school, I went to work full time, leaving my husband to try to get food in hungry bellies most nights after working all day. Whatever could be microwaved or thrown together on the stovetop in a few minutes became my family's regular meal. Oh, and pizza....lots and lots of pizza. Even on the nights I was home, I was too exhausted and too busy trying to catch up on household chores to really put any effort into our meals.


Sometimes life has a great sense of timing. After a summer of really crappy weather, which is really bad for the tiki bar business, I was let go from my job September of this year. After a couple days of wallowing in defeat, I started to see the picture of what our family had become a little clearer. I didn't like it, at all. We weren't taking any time for each other and my boys were living on a diet of things made up of ingredients not recognizable as food. 

We're working on family things like movie nights and board games and my boys are flourishing. They're doing better in school and just seem all-around more confident and happy little guys. But the biggest change in our family is the food.

I've started this blog to show people some of the steps we're taking to EAT REAL FOOD. 

This isn't going to be about raw food or paleo diets. It isn't about vegan or no carb or no sugar diets. This blog is about REAL FOOD. Comfort food, baked goods etc.....things people really want to eat but should never come from a box or have 5 lines of chemical preservatives and food dyes as ingredients.

As I'm learning from some of my younger friends and neighbors, cooking things that don't come from a box or a mix is a dying art. I want to show people how easy it is to make macaroni and cheese from scratch (and takes only a couple minutes more than a box), how to steam a vegetable, make REAL gravy, bake simple breads and so many other basic kitchen skills.

Stay tuned and check back in soon for actual recipes and step by step pictures. But, until I can get them up, please.....make an effort today to look at ingredient labels and try to EAT REAL FOOD!