Somebody is 1 year old!

And that somebody is Jude!

Happy Birthday to my little buddy, oh wait, i guess that is big buddy as of today!

My life has changed for the better because of his smiling face and big blue eyes.

You are loved my little beau, no doubt about that.

Out and about

Oh fall....i totally love you but sometimes i am not ready to let you hypnotize me with your crackly leaves, then i really must accept that summer is gone and winter is not far off in the distance.

YUM!

 

The other day i wanted to see if Jude could eat a banana properly, and by properly i mean one bite at a time. Although i'm not really sure how people normally eat banana's because i have a hatred of them, i think the texture is repulsive. I can eat banana cake however, if you know, you decide you want to bake me one.

I guess i should not have been shocked when i handed him half a banana and he shoveled the whole thing in his mouth.
Dude! Slow down, we have more now that we gave our monkey back to the zoo.

I must say it is nice to have someone eating with such gusto and enthusiasm. And, i also have a breakfast, lunch and dinner eating companion. It gets lonely eating by yourself all the time and usually the husband is tired when we sit down to dinner, so conversation is sparce at times. Although, he does seem to have enough focus to read magazines and the paper while we are eating...hmmmm maybe we should just start reading articles out loud in place of real conversation. Doesn't that sound fun Jude??!

I am very hopeful however, that through slow and steady mind manipulation he will be my little culinarian and then proceed to talk about food with me all day long, oh and then we will talk about the food we made while we consume our delicious feast.
We will go to the cheese shop and taste all the delicious imported cheese, he will then ask me if we should get some quince jam to go along with the Mancego we just purchased. I will of course say, absolutely, yes! Then off to the bakery to buy our bread for the day and finally to Whole foods because he will like looking at the rainbow of color in the produce section. Ahhhh, i can see it now.....

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

black and white weekend

I love black and white photographs. Maybe because i'm used to seeing everything in color. I guess i just like the elegance and simplicity they seem to portray.
Cheers to an elegant and simple labor day!

Oh, Beau

Hello, world. My name is Jude and it's a good thing i am so unbelievably cute. My mommy is trying to stop breastfeeding me but i have other plans. As long as i can continue to wake up multiple times at night and refuse to go back to sleep until I get what i want, well, i've pretty much got it made.
Yes, mother, i will forever be attached to you...whether you like it or not.

Yellow gloves

Tonight i was wandering about amongst the aisles at Target (yes that's right, wandering, i had no child with me, i am allowed to wander aimlessly) when in the middle of the cracker aisle i see them.

Yellow gloves!!! You know, the kind people use when they are really serious about cleaning. Gloves that i have never owned because, well, when have i ever been really serious about cleaning?? Waste of money in my opinion....
These were not yellow gloves in a package but yellow gloves being worn by a woman who looked like maybe she shouldn't yet have been released from the institution. She was examining a box of Keebler cookies as i passed by, and i was trying not to stare at the blazing brightness of her yellow rubber hands while i tried to figure out what exactly was going on.
I know, i know....i'm so mean and just so quick to put people who are concerned with germs in to the loony category. But, come on! Isn't that why they make hand sanitizer??? I guess i should be one to talk and she should probably be afraid to touch anything that i touched seeing my child has hand, foot and mouth disease.
Don't worry though, lady, at least i didn't bring him and his infected saliva with me.

What's for dinner??!

Today i want to talk about food. And what else can there possibly be to say about food, you ask?
I know, i know, people write books about food, they blog on and on about the best way to cook risotto or truss a chicken; numerous articles and essays are written on chopping, prepping, baking and eating. What is there left to say???!!!

Oh plenty, plenty my friends.....pull up a seat, munch on something sweet and read on.

I seem to perpetually be in a food dilemma. I find myself constantly (and consistently) conflicted between eating in and eating out. I love going to the the grocery, farmer's market and specialty food stores. Aisles upon Aisles of delicious possibility. Every product in a neat row, labels aligned and promising flavor nirvana to those who choose to partake. Fancy condiments and jams galore, exquisite pasta from Italy, fresh farm asparagus so green you start to wonder where the murky green asparagus comes from that you are forced to buy in the dead of winter. It's just too much for one food loving person to take! When i really start to ponder exactly how many food options exist, i freeze, mid aisle. My feet don't move, my eyes glass over, i hear a voice "can i help you miss?" When i realize i have just been staring blankly at a box of preservative packed snack cakes for the last five minutes, i know it's time to go. Who actually buys this stuff anyway?? Or more accurately, who actually thinks it's a good idea to concoct and feed this stuff to our children??
Clearly somebody or the product wouldn't be staring back at me in prime eye level location. Just another evil marketing ploy...but not this time delicious yet horribly bad for you snack cake...not this time!!

All of these products and ingredients can be enough to make anyone crazy excited to throw them together and ta da...you have a meal, or something resembling a meal. What constitutes a meal anyway? I'll leave that for open interpretation.....

As you can see i have a passion for buying food, and occasionally actually doing something with the stuff i do buy, but more often than not i don't feel like cooking. This could be due to just pure laziness on my part, but what is really lurking in the back of my mind is knowing that there exists so many delicious options for food where all you have to do is decide, pay and eat. Whether it be in restaurants, deli counters or food carts; food that tastes amazing and results in basically no dirty dishes is absolutely fantastic in my book.
One day i feel like eating pad thai with shrimp, ok, i can eat it without buying a bazillion ingredients and turning my kitchen inside out, then being left with an awkward half lemongrass stalk and a full bottle of fish sauce. Actually i did attempt pad thai...definitely the first and last attempt, unless i want sub-par dry rice noodles with no flavor again. Some things are better off left to those who know what they're doing and who do it everyday.
A lot of cooking shows now like to do segments on 30 minute meals, especially one's where they re-invent take out. First of all, they don't take in to consideration the shopping time it takes to get the ingredients or how long it takes to prep and store the ingredients after bringing them home. After all is said and done, at least an hour has gone by and your starving husband has asked you three times in the last 10 minutes when dinner will be ready. Sorry, the recipe never mentioned how long it takes to get everything ready needed to cook the actual food! I say if it was originally meant for take out, leave it to the people who do it best, the restaurant.

It's a tough and a pretty consistent dilemma of what to eat. Usually it's an enjoyable process for me, but in the end you have to just listen to your stomach. Consider the effort you want to put forth and either go to the grocery store armed with a plan or pick up the phone and tell that person on the other side that you soooo need some spicy yellow curry or your day won't be complete. I'm sure they'll understand, they are there to fulfill your food cravings morning, noon and night. And rest assured they won't judge you, even if you do order the same thing for a week straight. It's ok if you just really couldn't be bothered to pick up a frying pan. No judgement, even if you did just pay a hundred bucks for that sparkly stainless steel one at the gourmet cooking ware store. It will get used eventually and until then, it will at least look nice as part of your kitchen decor!