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By Emily, December 31, 2009 1:39 pm

My husband thinks New Years Resolutions are silly.  He think if one wants to change something, they should just do it, instead of waiting for the new year to make a commitment.  There’s probably some validity to that, but I like making resolutions.

There are about a million things I’d like to change in the coming year, but I tried to keep it to a reasonable few.  Hopefully by posting them, I’ll be more motivated to actually keep them!

Specific Goals for 2010:

• Go to the gym at least twice a week

Brian and I are members at our local gym, but as winter has progressed and I’ve begun teaching full time (yay!) it’s been harder to get ourselves there.  Ideally, I’d like to get to the gym every other day, but I’m hoping that by setting a goal of two days a week, I can be successful.

• Drink more water

This probably could’ve been my New Years Resolution for the past 15 years.  I have never consumed as much water as one is supposed to.  I could probably go through an entire day without drinking much more than my morning cup of tea (actually, I’m sure I have).  In terms of specificity for this goal, I’d like to make sure I empty my water bottle at least once during work and consume a big glass of water in the afternoon.  Again, the ideal would be even more liquid than this, but I like to start small.

• Add new posts to Relishments at least twice a week.

My recipe pile keeps growing, and my cooking’s getting better, but sometimes it just doesn’t translate to the site.  Again, I’ll blame working for the drop in posts.  Hopefully I can make this site more of a priority and keep you “posted” on what’s happening in my kitchen.  Maybe I can even bring back Links of the Week (which would also help me stay on top of my reader!)

Not so specific goals:

1. Learn to bake really good bread  (recipe suggestions welcome!)
2. Learn to cook with tofu (recipe suggestions welcome!)
3. Learn to make more things that I usually buy (bread, crackers, yogurt, etc)
4. Maximize my freezer space
5. Create original recipes

Happy New Year! Wishing you and your families a great 2010!

Comments (1)

By Emily, December 25, 2009 11:48 am

It was just a year ago (December 23, 2008) that I started with blog with no direction.  A week later (December 29, 2009) I decided to make my blog about food.

What a year it’s been!  I’ve drastically changed my eating habits, learned to cook, greatly decreased my eating of processed food and eating out (which isn’t, by definition, bad, but I like to know what I’m eating).  I went from posting about Food Network shows, to not having cable, to posting recipes and reviews.  In September, I bought my own domain (!!)

Meanwhile, I got married, moved from Maine to Massachusetts, starting working at a new school, and learned to cook for my husband and spend a reasonable amount of money on food.

In honor of the new year, and my 1st blogoversary, this is my yearly “year in review” post that I always put on facebook:

1)Where did you begin 2009?
Hanging out at my parents with Brian. I don’t even remember if we made it until midnight.

2) What was your status by Valentine’ s Day?
Engaged and getting impatient.

3) Were you in school anytime this year?
Just about every day, except for the summer.

4) How did you earn your money ?
Various roles in education.

5) Would you relive 2009 over and over again?
I could relive my wedding day and honeymoon…but most of the rest was pretty uneventful. I could definitely pass on moving in the August heat.

6) Are you registered to vote?
Yup.

7) Do you still have the same job as you did in 2008?
nope.

8) Describe your birthday?
Brian took me to Harney and Sons Tea. It was delicious. And then we went outlet shopping.

9) What’ s one thing you thought you’d never do but did in 2009?
Be a long term substitute teacher in disciplines I thought I’d never teach, purchase my own internet domain, become a Massachusetts resident :)

10) What has been your favorite moment?
Getting married, changing my name , starting a new life, making some really awesome food

11) What music will you remember 2009 by?
“Then” by Brad Paisley.

12) Favorite Night out?
my pre-wedding girls night, game nights

13) Would you say you’ve changed since the beginning of this year?
Definitely, but hopefully for the better.

14) Do you think 2010 will be better or worse ?
2009 was a good year, but I always hope it’ll get better.  I’m very excited to see what 2010 will bring for Relishments!

Merry Christmas and happy new year, everyone!

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By Emily, November 13, 2009 6:47 pm

I’ve added a new feature to Relishments!  At the bottom of every post, you’ll see this button:

Click on any of the buttons to share on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, StumbleUpon or other social sites.  Or, add it to your Google or browser bookmarks, or email the post.  Now if you see something you like on Relishments, it’s even easier to share!

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By Emily, September 25, 2009 7:21 am

I have been hoping to relocate my  blog for a long time now and I am so excited that the day is finally here!  Now Brian can stop listening to me complain everytime I want to do something on my blog that Wordpress.com wouldn’t let me.  I’m really excited about the flexibility the Wordpress platform is going to offer me.

Much thanks is owed to my wonderful parents who kindly financed this move by way of my birthday gift.  On the technical side, I definitely owe Matt and his blog, Health Blog Helper, for making it clear just how easy the move was going to be.

Make sure you change your bookmarks and RSS Reader to

http://www.relishments.com

Let me know if you have any problems with the new site.  More updates and changes are in the works, so stay tuned :)

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By Emily, July 4, 2009 4:35 pm

To address any concern you may have had, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I got married (though I’m sure in the minds of some people, those events are equivalent)!!!  At any rate, the ceremony was last Saturday, the only nice day in Maine since forever and we had a wonderful time.  It was perfect and everything I dreamed it would be.  A week later, my Man and I are getting settled into our apartment in the Berkshires and starting our life together. Finally.

I love my Man more than words can express. I’m so glad we’re finally married and together, instead of doing the silly long distance thing we maintained for 2 years. My Man has innumerable wonderful qualities, but one of the ones I’m most excited about is his willingness to let me be myself in the kitchen. He’ll eat pretty much anything (or at least try it) and though he still wants to eat meat on occasion, he’s totally cool with the healthy, flexitarian/vegetarian, homemade lifestyle I’m pursuing. Such a refreshing change from home, where “beans”, “vegetarian” and “different” are sometimes dirty words. And we’ve got a plethora of new pots, pans, dishes and cooking gadgets to encourage me in my culinary endeavors. It’s very exciting.

It’s also thrilling to be living in a place with several decent supermarkets in town. No more driving half an hour because our local store doesn’t have what I need! I’ve promised myself (and my Man) that I will shop more purposefully than my family does at home, which sometimes results in going to the supermarket several times a week.  I made a list, planned a menu for the week and staked out deals in the supermarket fliers last night. We ventured out to the store this morning at which point I made a very sad discovery.

Food costs money.

Clearly this is not really news to the rest of the world, but now that I am living on a budget and seeking employment, we’re trying to limit the amount of money we spend on groceries every week.  A sad reality for my cooking dreams, given that I used to not give a thought to spending $20 on the ingredients for one meal when I was living at home. At any rate, it adds to the challenge and I’m sure will work out once we get into a routine, have more staples in the cupboard, and I get a job.

Meanwhile, I’ve subscribed to the following blogs (because I obviously didn’t have enough others to read) with the hope that they’ll help me cook good food while saving money:

5 Dollar Dinners

Fat Free Vegan

Closet Cooking

Thanks to another great blog,  Cheap, Healthy, Good, for the links!

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By Emily, May 5, 2009 6:49 pm

So, posting hasn’t been quite as frequent as I’d like it to be lately.  Seems like I haven’t been able to make much free time since break from school in April.

Summer is fast approaching in mid-coast Maine.  Around here, it seems like there are just 2 seasons: summer and winter.  Winter was too long, too cold, and too boring, but things finally changing.  Summer means the opening of all the seasonal businesses.  This is good, because I’ve been waiting for farmer’s markets and fresh, local produce for months.  Maybe next weekend I’ll have the chance to finally go check one out.

It also means that restaurants, including the drive in, the ice cream shops and the local hot dog stand, are open again.  Some of these places don’t even have vegetarian offerings on their menus!  It’s things like that which I forgot over the winter while I was making vegan soups.  It was a lot easier to eat healthy food then, when delicious, greasy, meaty, fat-ridden food wasn’t easily available to me.  As I get busier and spend more time out of the house with members of my family  its easier for everyone involved to grab a quick hamburger instead of seeking out somewhere that serves healthy food just to make me happy.  I’ve had some good grease in the past couple weeks.  But I’m trying not to enjoy it too often and keep moderation (and flexitarianism) in mind.

Lunches got boring for a while, and this week I’m making vegetable sandwiches on whole wheat pita bread with hummus.  They’re good, fresh, and easy to change a little from day to day.  I do intend to get back into the kitchen soon and it looks like my schedule is going to allow me to.

I’ve almost finished reading Food Matters, and along with other sources, such as the excellent blog No Meat Athlete, have realized that the best (and often easiest) way to eat well is to eat natural food.  I know this idea isn’t unique, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who didn’t realize it.  Clearly, food that is closer to its original source, which hasn’t been altered and processed and treated, is better for us than the alternative.  My current plan involves trying to eat whole wheat products, fresh fruit and vegetables, and packaged food with as few ingredients as possible (Michael Pollan recommends less than 5…at least that’s what I’ve heard, I still haven’t read In Defense of Food).  Sometimes doing all this is still difficult, but its a lot easier than remembering all sorts of other rules.  It’s nice to know it can be that simple, since I still feel like I just stumbled into this “eating healthy” thing with no idea what I’m doing.  The Wall Street Journal just ran a piece about how “health food isn’t always healthy.”  Check it out, it’s pretty interesting.

Stay tuned, I promise more, better posts in the future.

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By Emily, March 12, 2009 9:31 pm

Food and Fads: When I started this blog, I just wanted to write and share with the world my thoughts on “stuff”.  A week later I got the inspiration to write about food, it made sense: I was watching ridiculous amounts of Food Network television, beginning to cook for myself and was reading lots of inspiring food blogs.  I like food.

It’s a bit surprising to find myself, three months later, a disciple of the current big “food fad.” (which is to say, “the thing everyone is talking about,” not “the thing that’s not going to last”)   It’s really strange, because I usually work hard to buck trends. I still haven’t seen the Lord of the Rings movies or read the Twilight books primarily because everyone else has.  I just like to be contrary.  But it suddenly seems like I’m running into vegetarians all over the place and everyone is talking about flexitarianism and here I am, ranting and raving about not eating meat (though I still do) and cooking food with barley and beans and wondering how on earth that happened.  It’s just so unlike me.  I used to eat so much junk and now I’ve changed my habits dramatically.  Its like I don’t recognize myself.  Part of me wonders if one day soon I’ll wake up and go back to eating roast beef sandwiches and candy bars for lunch.

:Teaching and Twitter…

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By Emily, March 5, 2009 9:16 pm

Facts:

1. I love Google Reader.  It’s an obsession and a disease, really.  If you don’t use a reader, but you read blogs or news, you should get one.  (Wow, this sounds like the professional development session I’m planning to do at my school next month!)
2. I have 105 subscriptions (some of which, of course, are never actually updated).
3. 27 of those subscriptions are food related.  Some of those are never updated, but some are updated a lot.
4. I sometimes make posts (like the one below) just because I want to share an article because I think it’s interesting, but I don’t necessarily have anything to add.

All that to say, I’ve added a new “widget” to the bottom of the column on the right of the blog called “Other’s Intriguing Articles”.  It will list all the blog posts and news stories I want to share, without rambling comments from myself.  It will probably be updated daily, so check back often.  Of course, articles worthy of commentary will still get posts from me.

You can also see the expanded articles here, on my public Reader page.

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By Emily, March 1, 2009 9:33 pm

Amazon’s food blog, Al Dente, posted a great link on Friday: “Ten Things To Expect When Dining With a Food Blogger” from Under the High Chair.  Also excellent is the follow-up post, “Ten Things I’ve Learned About Food Bloggers“.

Well worth checking out if you’re a food blogger who needs a laugh…or if you know a food blogger and have been invited to eat dinner with them (#1, 8 and 9 from “Ten Things to Expect” are especially true for me).

Comments (3)

By Emily, February 22, 2009 6:43 pm

When I began this blog, part of the intent was to learn more about food and the current issues surrounding it and develop my own opinions and use those opinions to influence my cooking and lifestyle.  All that said, Relishments has largely degraded into a demonstration of how many ways there are to use oil, garlic, herbs and canned tomatoes to make lunch (which I did once again today, though I’ll spare you a post). It’s becoming apparent to me that I really need to look into this issue and develop a stance, both as someone who loves food, and as a teacher.

On February 19, Alice Waters and Katrina Heron published an op-ed piece in the NY Times called No Lunch Left Behind.  They make a lot of good points, but as a high school educator, I don’t think their plan is going to have all the “magical” consequences they’re hoping for.  I do agree that “without healthy food (and cooks and kitchens to prepare it), increased financing [of the current school lunch program] will only create a larger junk-food distribution system,” but I’m unsure if there’s enough locally grown, untreated, unfertilized, fresh foods to supply every child in America with the perfect lunch every day, as Waters and Heron envision.

The column also argues that healthy meals could be created for $5, but that does not include the “one-time investment in real kitchens”, providing students with the education they recommend or new training for cooking staff.  I suspect a tab of far more than $27 billion dollars would result, especially in the first few years.  I’m also not sure that the long term benefits and savings would be as far-reaching as Waters and Heron hope (though I’d love if they were right).  I think school lunch programs can only do so much.  The real issue is frequently at home; even if children are educated about good eating habits and given good food at lunch (which may or may not actually taste good), I believe that youth are more influenced by what they see and experience at home than at school; yes, “…parents should be able to rely on the government to contribute to their children’s physical well-being”, but the keyword is contribute.

Finally, I love Ezra Klein’s commentary on The Internet Food Association: “There are things we should do because they should be done. We’re the richest nation in the world. We can do better than feeding our children inventively presented corn syrup fresh from the microwave.”  As much as I can be suspicious of Waters and Heron’s proposal, I’m sure that there are improvements that can and should be made to the school lunch program.  Changing school lunches is not going to revolutionize American health, as the column seems to envision, but there’s no reason why America shouldn’t make changes where we’re able.

See also:

Mouthing Off, from Food and Wine

Alice Waters Proposes New School Lunch Program, from Serious Eats

Anthony Bourdain on Alice Waters, from The Food Section

Alice Waters’s Open Letter to the Obamas, from Gourmet

Alice Waters on Wikipedia