Bio

Hey there!  I'm Maggie, an INFJ, 5w4, 30-something with a passion for food and the curves to prove it!  I'm also fascinated by local food movements and the great outdoors, both of which inform my view of the world.  I also believe that bodies and spirits are one in the same, so all of this has spiritual meaning for me too.

This blog site is part resource, part documentation, part hobby.  Part resource in that I hope it helps make meal planning and cooking easier for people like me.  Part documentation because I was recently asked by carnivorous family "what do you eat?" and I had no idea what to tell them.  And part hobby, because I really do enjoy cooking.  I enjoy taking the time to plan and think out what I'm going to do for the week.  It's sometimes a chore, but it's also oddly therapeutic.

We do have to eat, but we also get to eat.  In __________, Norman Wirzba writes, "Eating is an invitation to enter into communion and be reconciled with each other.  To eat with God at the table is to eat with the aim of healing and celebrating the membership of creation."

Food is central to every culture because eating is more than just kcal transactions designed to keep our cells functioning.  Eating is about living well with ourselves and with others.  

Eating is about encountering divine love in a pot of pasta shared with friends.  It is about leaving that table to share the same love with a hungry stranger at a different table.  It is about strengthening our commitment to self-love when we sit at a table to enjoy a meal by ourselves instead of sitting in front of the TV (btw, no shame if you are a TV eater, but it wasn't good for me and was part of my 2018 rule of life...which I'm still working on).  It is about seeing and honoring and praising our mother earth as she loves us, or as Saint Francis of Assisi would sing:

Dear mother earth, who day by day 

unfoldest blessings on our way, 

Alleluia! Alleluia!  

The flowers and fruits that in thee grow, 

let them God's glory also show! 

O praise ye! O praise ye! 

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

...maybe I should have mentioned before now that I'm a music enthusiast. If the blog title didn't give it away, you should expect periodic quotations of song.  But I digress.

Eating is central and joyful and life-giving...but meal planning is really hard.  Especially if you're just starting out.  Balancing your schedule and dietary needs alone is difficult, but food should also be good for the planet and our neighbors and...IT SHOULD TASTE GOOD.  Yeah, that should be shouted.

This blog is an attempt to share what I know about the above.  I bring with me several commitments to this work.  The first is that meals should be:

1. nutritious & balanced
2. tasty & adventurous 
3. seasonal
4. flexible
5. easy on the meat

The second is that I am committed to make things interesting but manageable.  To that end, weekly meal plans will make 10-12 meals, and include:

1. one staple
2. one meat dish
3. one new vegetarian dish (I'm pretty excited about getting to try such new things
4. snack suggestions

I also plan to post breakfast and dessert ideas periodically, as well as party ideas.  Heck, maybe I'll even include cocktail suggestions!

I know food is a really difficult thing.  Most of us have a complex relationship with the things we eat (I do want to point out that complexity isn't necessarily a bad thing).  I want to share what I know, and make a difficult thing easier.  Or maybe make a shameful thing less shameful. So, finally, I commit to sharing what I know without blaming or shaming. And maybe along the way you'll find recipes or tricks that make you excited about what you eat and the place it comes from!