My mission, should I choose to accept it...

Greetings!  This blog will be dedicated to food.

Specifically, food made by me, in my home.  Maybe for the common person, this would seem like a rather ordinary topic.  But for me, and my family, a meal at home has come to be a rare treat.

Why?  For starters, my husband and I are both music teachers.  Band directors, specifically.  Technically, the following discussion should occur between the college advisor and an incoming student who wishes to be a band director:

Advisor:  How do you feel about working late?
Student:  Fine with me.
Advisor:  Every night?
Student:  I'm tough, I can do it.
Advisor:  How much sleep do you need a night?
Student:  I can sleep when I'm dead.
Advisor:  Alrighty...how about having no time for a social life?
Student:  I'm a band geek - do you think I have one now?
Advisor:  Point taken...and no time to eat anything but fast food, and scraps from the vending machine?
Student:  Duh - college student!!!  That's my life...

And yes, when you're in college, that type of existence is acceptable.  We could live on pizza and beer (after we were 21, of course...), only sleep in 10 minute noddings-off during music history class, and only socialize with those who were in our classes, or hung out in practice rooms.

And, if we're lucky enough to graduate with some remnants of sanity intact, and get a job - and perhaps somehow meet a spouse and have a child...

...we look down one day to find our waistlines expanded, and our wallets emptied into the giant black hole named "McDona-Burger-Bell-Fazoli-Hut".

And we're probably alone, in our car, not having seen the spouse or child as recent memory can recall...then begin to sob into our lidded cup of Diet Coke.

This realization recently came to me.  Not quite as I described above, but reality was much less dramatic.  The voices in my head actually sounded more like this:

"We need to buy a new car...and replace a radiator in the old one...and our daughter will be driving soon...insurance goes up...and health insurance is going up...and my jeans don't fit...and I can cook...why are we eating at Mexican restaurants 2 times a week (other than it's 99 cent margarita night on Tuesday and Thursday) and other various establishments every other night when I can make more healthy, cost-effective, and frankly, yummy food at home!"

Then my mind got on its soap box.  (To get the full effect of the following, you have to start humming "America the Beautiful", and if you can, stare at an American flag with righteous indignation.)

"I can feed my family without the aid of a teenage 'chef' at a local fast food joint.  I can budget time to save money and my health by cooking our own meals.  And...when we eat at home, we'll have family time that will become so hard to find soon enough.  I owe it to my family and myself to make the pledge to make food - and eat food - at home!!!"

(cue the scraping sound across the "America the Beautiful" record playing in your head)

That's great.  Now how am I going to do it?

Fortunately, my parents knew of my plight, and were kind enough to buy me some Crock-Pot cookbooks for Christmas.  And, over the Christmas break, I took time to go through them, and other cookbooks, and make lists of recipes.  And - my wonderful sis and her hubby got us a subscription to "Food and Wine" magazine, which has wonderful recipes - and not all of them require one to purchase a lava rock from Hawaii that you heat to rocket hot to grill the Kobe beef seasoned with truffles and saffron.  (Do the math on that one - you could probably pay for my new car and the radiator with that kind of dough.)

So here I am.  I'm going to blog about my quest, in the hopes that it will encourage me to honor my solemn pledge (or mental murmurings of a mad woman, one or the other) - and perhaps inspire some readers to do the same.

We all gotta eat - we might as well enjoy it.  Perhaps we should savor not only the taste of the food we eat - but the experiences we share while preparing it, and eating it.

I invite you to come along for the ride!