It's Monday!

Have a laugh! After all, It's just food!

Question: Why did the chicken lay her eggs on a axe? Answer: She wanted to hachet

Question: What do you call a egg who’s done lots of things? Answer: An egg who has a lot of eggsperience.

Question: Where do you find information about eggs? Answer: In the hen-cyclopedia

Question: Why is the chef so mean? Answer: She beats the eggs!

Question: Did you hear the one about the egg? Answer: It’s not all it’s “cracked” up to be!

Question: How can you drop an egg six feet without breaking it? Answer: By dropping it seven feet – it won’t break for the first six

Is It Because of the Food?

Do you have an active imagination? I do. Today, I was wondering what would happen if I suddenly had some sort of an attack. How would I get help? Maybe this thought came from me trying to decide what to eat this evening. I don't want to cook. I just want to pick something up. Is it possible to find healthy fast food?

Let's say medics could get to me. They'd have to use my cell phone to find my relatives. C'mon! This is the 21st century! Who keeps emergency contact cards or address books in their purses anymore? I don't have a contact for 'me' or 'home' in case I lose my phone... because I don't have a land line! I probably need to label my children as 'son' and 'daughter' and label my sister as 'emergency contact'. I wondering if anyone reading this has a clever way to address this important issue of keeping an emergency list?

Also along these lines is the need to make sure someone has passwords to my online accounts. From what I've heard, it can be a nightmare getting FB and other social networking services to work with family members if someone can no longer maintain their own account. Privacy after all! Instead of just that paper trail of account information, there also needs to be a digital one. Someone would also have to have passwords to my email accounts and Twitter because I have so many wonderful friends that I only know online! My children don't even know most of them exist but they'd have to know to contact them for me.

Sorry if you think I'm being morbid. I'm really feel like I'm being Andy Rooney. I have these thoughts sometimes, I guess that's why I blog!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

WednesdayWriting

Cake.
I learned to bake them by watching my mom in the kitchen. Maybe I watched her because I was interested in what she was doing and maybe because I watched she invited me in. From watching her I learned the order of putting a cake together. I knew I always had to take the butter out in time to melt because it had to melt on its own to melt right. And, it had to be butter. She preferred all purpose flour to cake flour and lined her pans with flour on the sides and wax paper on the bottom. She always tried new things in the kitchen and her attempts always made for a better final product. Did she discuss techniques with her friends or did she spend hours contemplating them on her own? I don't know!
Mom didn't always bake cakes. She would only do them for holidays or special events. The fact that it was Sunday wasn't special, but Easter Sunday was.
I think this is something that has really changed in our food history: we no longer have as many special foods only on special occasions. Cookies, cakes and other pastries that used to find their way into our kitchens at festive times now are staples as is meat. I often ate meat three times a day when my ancestors would have been lucky to have it three times a week.
How much meat do we really need?
My food memory also has images of well balanced, full plate dinners that always had a vegetable, meat, salad, tea and starch served on the kitchen table around 4 pm and we all sat down to eat. The messages were clear: no soda for dinner, a full plate is served and we all sit down together. I'm only just now realizing that message about a full plate of food. I couldn't be satisfied with just a plate of macaroni and cheese for dinner because it didn't fit my memory. I've recently learned that my biggest meal should be eaten for breakfast and each meal through the day should get smaller. That way my food intake matches my energy output. Eat like a queen in the morning, a princess for lunch and a pauper for dinner.
My mom's favorite cake became the Caramel Cake. I think right now, mine is German Chocolate, but it has to be home made! The best recipe I know of is on the Baker's German Chocolate label.

Tempting Tuesday

Yes! I need to post with greater regularity and this is my attempt! I'm going to tempt you on Tuesday to prepare you for Wednesday's word.

Can you bake a cake?
 Who taught you? What memorable baking experience do you have? What is your favorite cake to bake?

Breaking Bread

last meal: BREAKFAST
fried rice with bacon, diced pears and provolone

Yes, it's been a while! I have blog posts going through my mind followed with periods of doubt as to why I even started this blog which are quickly followed by food emails from Zetta or the elongated shows on PBS which are meant to attract supporters but which also address what we eat. (As I write, Dr. Northrup is relating how sugar is the #1 problem in our diets.) Right now, more than convincing myself to continue this blog my issue is deciding what to put in this post! I'll spare you from all the rambling, well most of it, and go with the most recent and therefore clearest thought I have.
For the sake of transparency, I have to admit that I have become an Amazon Associate and if you should happen to purchase a book because of the information you find here, I'll become independently wealthy (jk. seriously jk!) I want to relate that because I'm realizing that most of my posts to date in someway relate to a book. I'm not trying to sell books! I'm a librarian by trade and civilized by western society: I tend to value what's in print. I value the people with whom I share information and the time you put into reading this, so I'm going to relate books, videos, blogs, articles and other forms of information along the way.
So, I have another book to mention.
Years ago, I read Tales of a Female Nomad.  This was one of two books that related to me in such a personal level that I felt like I'd made a new best friend in the author, Rita Golden Gelman. Gelman and her husband separated and she chose to take the opportunity to venture out on her own and do something she's always wanted to do. Gelman, well over the age of 40, found herself in Mexico learning Spanish and immersing herself in Mexican culture. Gelman and her husband did divorce, she let go of him and things in her life and began connecting to people, cultures, stories, organizations and foods all over the world. Her latest book Female Nomad and friends: tales of breaking free and breaking bread just released on 1 June.
The first chapter is available free online and has to do with carrot soup.  To help promote the new book, Golman will be hosting a global dinner party. The following details are from her website, where you can also find a participation kit, registration information and recipes.

We finally have the details of our Global Dinner Party. When you finish this, go back to the menu and click on "Participation Kit." People all over the world are signing up (on Facebook.com/femalenomad) to invite friends to their homes for dinner on June 18th to celebrate the launch of the new anthology, to experience the joy of connecting through food and conversation, and to contribute, by buying books, to the vocational education of kids from the slums in New Delhi. If you're not on Facebook, send me an e-mail:  femalenomad@gmail.com. Be sure to let us know where you live. We already have parties in Turkey, Colombia, Canada, China, Mexico, Ireland,Guatemala and more. And tons all across the U.S. Every party counts, so do join us.

I don't know if I can do the dinner as I'll be preparing for an intense workshop in Mississippi at that time. I'd love to use this as an excuse to break bread with friends. This is when it's not just food, it's nurturing our friends and our friendships.