Lazy Week

For those of you who follow this little blog weekly I apologize for being lazy! Quite honestly, I have made several things (fried chicken, peanut butter caramel brownies, chocolate chip cookies, etc.) but I was not satisfied with the ultimate outcome of any of the recipes enough to actually post about them. They were all promising, but in the end they missed the mark for me.

I will attempt to do better this week! Today, though still rather sluggish, after hitting the farmers market I made both a traditional shortbread as well as jam sandwich cookies; both turned out lovely. I will photograph them in the morning and post the recipes soon afterwards.

In the mean time, for those of you food loving folk who have yet to read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, this should be close to the top of your list. For culinary school we were sent a list of recommended reading; yes, similar to what you would receive before departing for summer break in middle school. Thus, being a goody two shoes type of student, I have been systematically reading my way through the lengthy list. Some of course are better, or more relevant to me, than others.

I started with the Omnivore's Dilemma, because the bakery manager at the shop in DC which I interned, recommended it to me a few weeks before I received the "recommended" list of reading materials. Michael delves into the world of food as we know it and how it has become mostly unidentifiable in the last 50 or so years. It is a fascinating and mildly disturbing piece of work that will make you reevaluate what and how you eat (if you have not already come to terms with this notion).

In this line of thinking I will begin my intro to gardening course next weekend. I am taking classes from a local shop that teaches novice gardeners how to set up and establish their own vegetable gardens using organic and sustainable principles. Now that we have a huge piece of land, I can finally have a nice vegetable garden; all I need is the know how at this point!