I'm Back!!

Well, I’m back!  I first feel I need to apologize for my year hiatus.  I had all intentions to keep my blog going last year but it just didn’t happen.  First, we bought a new house.  With the new house came LOTS of big projects.  I honestly spent every waking moment that I wasn’t at work, working on the house.  We painted 8 rooms, tamed the garden, updated the kitchen with fresh paint and hardware on the cabinets, removed paneling, removed carpet from the stairs and so much more.  Sometimes I look around our house and forget all of the stuff we have already done.  Second, I started a new job right when we bought the house.  My new job is fabulous and I have WAY more free time but I no longer have my ½ day Fridays in the summer.  And those ½ day Fridays were primarily dedicated to writing the blog.  Without them, I was a little lost on when I had time to sit down and do it.  People may not know this about me, but writing really doesn’t come naturally for me.  It doesn’t just flow out.  It takes a lot of time and thought which means each week I was spending 1-2 hours to just recap what I made and try to write something a little witty.  Finally, one HUGE factor on why I didn’t continue the blog last summer is it did what it was supposed to.  I started the blog for myself.  A place for me to keep notes and recipes of what I made in the past.  What I liked and what I didn’t.  Last summer I found myself time and time again going back to the blog and making the same recipes as last year.  I greatly enjoyed it but I didn’t think it would be any fun for someone who was reading to see the exact same recipe as last year. 

With that being said, I am starting back up but with a slightly different format.  I will still take pictures of my CSA each week so everyone can see what I am getting; see what is in season.  I will not be recapping exactly what I do with every item each week.  Instead, I will focus on all local food I am eating.  Food I am getting from my CSA, farmer’s market and even the grocery store that is local.  Each week, I hope to post a 1-2 meals I have made that are especially inspiring and made of mainly local food.  I plan on posting some pictures, the recipes, and if I know them, the farms everything has come from.  I truly love my CSA.  I am excited every Thursday when I get to pick it up, but it’s not the only way to eat fresh local food.  It’s not the only way to support your local farmers.  And it’s not the only thing we eat. 

Also, the month of August the blog will be hijacked to document my month long European adventure.  I am fortunate enough that my husband’s company “pays” for a 4 week vacation to anywhere in the world.  (I use pays loosely because the reimbursement is still taxed).  We have decided to enjoy these wonderful 4 weeks in Europe, specifically Zurich, Monaco, Italy, Bratislava, Budapest and Croatia.  Many people of requested to see what we are doing while we are there.  As long as we have internet, I am hoping to post pictures from each day as well as a quick bullet point of what we did.  Nothing too elaborate since I want to spend my time relaxing and enjoy the culture (read: food and drink), not struggling to find the right words. 

I hope people are too disappointed with the change but I think this will be much more manageable for me.  I am excited to share all of the local food in our area.  And I encourage everyone to go out to their own farmer’s markets.  Try some that was just picked that day.  Try something new that don’t even know what to do with it or how it tastes.  You may surprise yourself, just as I did with turnips.

P.S. I plan on posting my first 2 CSA photos last today along with a few others.