I'm back and introducing my new love....Ruby

I didn't share with most of you that I have been in mourning the last few months.  My dear, faithful, and trusty Kitchen Aide died on me.  My husband, who is very handy and mechanically inclined, stepped in while the poor thing was sputtering away and tried to no avail to save my favorite kitchen appliance.  But, there was nothing that could be done.  The motor was fried in a fluke accident when an interior bolt came loose.  

As a result of losing my cooking companion, and life in general which includes three hunting trips, computer issues, kids going back to school, and me finishing my degree, I haven't been cooking much.  But now, life is slowing down a little bit and for my birthday my mother in law gave to me Ruby, my new Kitchen Aide mixer (yes, I know it isn't really normal to name an appliance but I couldn't help it.  I justify my actions by arguing that people name cars and boats and all kids of things so why not my shiny, new mixer?)

Ruby is RED, hence the name, and I can't wait to start making some of the recipes I having pinning on Pinterest. (If you haven't checked Pinterest out yet please go take a peak at my boards.  It's a virtual pin board for all great things you love and slightly addicting!)  Below is a picture I took when Ruby came out of the box and arrived at her new home on my counter top. 

Checking In!

Hello everyone!  I am sorry that it appears I dropped off the face of blog world without a hint of my whereabouts and more importantly without any new recipes to share.  My family went on vacation for a week and I thought I had some wonderful posts scheduled to appear in my absence but I did something wrong.  Not only did nothing post, but they also aren't in my drafts.  Needless to say I am a bit frustrated at the moment!

But, back to the vacation stuff.  We went to a wonderful theme park called Silverwood, in Northern Idaho after attending a close friend's wedding.  If you have never been to the Northern part of the state it is a great place for a family vacation.  We were able to spend time in Sandpoint enjoying the beautiful town and Lake Pend Oreille and then time at Silverwood.  Silverwood has something for everyone but this year it was especially fun because our littlest guy who is five got to go on some of the big roller coasters  his favorite was Timber Terror and our oldest was tall enough to go on the granddaddy of all of them, The Aftershock.  I loved the Cork Screw and the Panic Plunge.  There is nothing like getting scared to death in order to have a little fun!



The reason "Why"

Every once in a while I have people ask me "why" I cook the way I do.  The short answer has just always been because I like to.  I have always felt more grounded and in touch with who I really am as I cook.  It is my stress reliever when times are hard and my enjoyment when life is good.  I cook when I am sad, when I am happy, when I am lonely, when I am surrounded by love, and when I just am simply bored.  I have never examined what drives me to try making something from scratch that I can easily by prepared or in a mix.  But now that I have more time to focus on food through this blog I wonder if my reasoning runs deeper than just liking to cook. 

There is a certain feeling that comes when I serve food to the people I care about in my life.  I don't know what that feeling is, I don't even know how to describe it. I do know that when people gather to eat a meal that I helped create I enjoy every moment of the process most especially the eating.  I truly believe that there is something that food does to a group of people who gather to eat; it unites us even if only for a few minutes, it creates memories and when the person who made the food did so with love, it just always tastes better. 

My memories run deeper than merely eating the food though.  Watching all the work that went into the end result was fascinating for me.  While my cousins played outside on Thanksgiving, I remember sitting on a stool watching my Grandma H. making Parker House rolls.  On quiet days my mom would make her family apple sauce cookie recipe that still to this day makes me think of her when I eat them.  Then there were the hot summer days at my Grandma VC's house when she would make homemade Roquefort dressing for the salads we were eating, or the big Sunday pot roast dinners with gravy and all the sides that Grandma W. made.  And let's not forget the breads and pies that my Dad made, he taught me so much ("you can always add flour Jenny, but you can never take it away.") Then there are all the countless hours of cooking shows I have watched in this lifetime that have added to the foundation of cooking knowledge passed to me by my loved ones.  All of these moments added something to who I am now; the memories I have, and the love I feel for everyone who nourished my body and my mind as I grew up, allow me to do the same now for people I care about.

So the answer to the "why" question is that I make food and go through the work because I like to, it has become a part of what makes me who I am.  I like to remember my loved ones who have passed on and make their food, I like to cook with my family and enjoy the end of a busy day, I like to see everyone smile (or grimace) when they try something new, I like to be surrounded by people I care about and enjoy the camaraderie that results, I like food, I like the process, I like sharing my experiences with others and taking in theirs, and most important I just simply like to cook.

Attention, Attention!!!

ATTENTION READERS!

The family just returned  home from a wonderful week away.  There is just nothing like a good old American road trip.  We had a blast and now it is time for reality to return.  I apologize for the slowness of the blog and can only say that with your help good food is coming!  I have missed cooking very much and can't wait to try some new things, so I decided I want to try recipes that all of you, my readers, love and do a "Readers Recipe" entry once a week.  A few rules:

1. All recipes must be family friendly
2. All recipes must be sent with a story
3. All recipes should be thrifty in some way.  Maybe you are a couponer, grew your own veggies, or eat meat that your husband/family hunted, whatever way just tell me how you save money on this recipe.
4. All recipes need to be submitted to me via email at acooksquest at yahoo dot com 

It is "that" time again....

The "time" I refer to is the end of summer term at school.  Why I ever thought that cramming 10 weeks of information into 8 weeks with the schedule that my family has I will never understand.  At first (the first 3-4weeks) everything was OK, I had found a good balance between family, work and school but, oh yes, there is a but, all of a sudden the universe started spinning much faster, my days began slipping by in nano-seconds and then all of a sudden I found myself falling behind, struggling to keep up and praying that I would survive and retain the required information in order to pass those dreaded finals.

Well the end is almost here, I have been eating, breathing, and living school in every spare second I can find.  There has been no time for cooking, or grocery shopping or house cleaning, only survival people.  Luckily, my family is wonderful, my husband and children have been maintaining the house and no one stares too much as the circles around my eyes from lack of sleep make me look more and more like those cute little raccoons down by the river. 

So everyone, please hang in there with me as I finish this last week of school.  I promise that as soon as it is all over I will be cooking again, trying out all those great recipes  and sharing them with anyone willing to read my blog.  Wish me luck, and if I don't return within 7 days come looking for me I might just be buried under my laptop trying to study for my physics exam.

Name the one place you should never put your camera....

We all have those moments when we look at an object and think, "I should move that," or "that's not a good idea," and for whatever reason we don't move the item or we keep doing whatever it is we just told ourself not to do.  And inevitably, at least for me anyway, I regret not listening to myself because whatever "it" is does happen and things go very wrong.

Case in point--my camera. No it wasn't the Pentax that my sister in law owns that takes amazing photos every time and makes even the most inept people like myself feel like real photographers, but it was a nice little digital camera that I loved using.  It was easy to operate, took pretty good pictures and helped make my food look good enough to eat, so why I put it in the windowsill of my kitchen window I will never know.  I am clueless as to why I didn't move it the instant I thought, "hmmm, maybe that isn't a good place to put that." 

It at all started so normally.  I had placed a bowl into the sink, and began filling it with hot soapy water so I could use it for my next recipe.  The day had been beautiful and I had the window open.  As I stood there I reached up and started to close the window...yes the same window, with the same windowsill that my nice little camera was sitting on.  Before I realized what was happening, there was a splash.  At the same time soapy dishwater shot straight into my right eye. The situation at hand was rapidly going from bad to really really bad.  Slightly blind now, I used one hand to try and grab a dish towel to wipe my face and with the other hand reach into the sink for my camera.  Ouch!  Hot water!  With a stinging eye and a slightly burned hand I managed to fish my camera out of the suds and turn off the faucet.  My husband then emerged, and watched me use one hand to dump rice into a bowl, rip the memory card out  of the camera and toss it into the grains hoping, that like a cell phone, the rice would pull the moisture out of my camera....no such luck. The moisture got in, my camera doesn't work anymore and the only good thing is that my memory card was salvaged along with all the memories on it.

So next time you have that little thought don't ignore it.  Move the object, close the door, stop doing what ever it is your are doing and listen to yourself.  Oh, and most importantly, don't put your camera in a windowsill...it is a very bad idea!