So it begins...

So this is where I stop talking about writing a blog and finally start ... writing! My original intention was for this to be an all-purpose blog, about whatever I feel like writing about (be it feminism, politics, books, etc.). I think that it's mostly going to be a food blog, but with some of that other stuff mixed in. I mean, I defy categorization, so why can't my blog? Anyway, the focus on food stems from Michael Pollan's column in the New York Times ("Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch"). (In the interest of full disclosure, I've read two of his books (The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma), read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, and seen the documentaries "Super Size Me" and "Food, Inc." Clearly it was a case of preaching to the converted.) What especially stood out (for me) was this exchange between Mr. Pollan and Harry Balzer, a food-marketing researcher:

"I asked him how, in an ideal world, Americans might begin to undo the damage that the modern diet of industrially prepared food has done to our health. 'Easy. You want Americans to eat less? I have the diet for you. It's short, and it's simple. Here's my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That's it. Eat anything you want -- just as long as you're willing to cook it yourself.'"

(Read for yourself here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html )

So this is my personal experiment ... is this possible? Can I really live only on things I've made? How basic do my ingredients have to be? Is it cheating if I open a can of chicken stock, instead of tossing leftover chicken bits into hot water to make it myself, or a canister of (Italian-style) bread crumbs instead of hunks of bread tossed into a food processor? How good will all this taste? Can I do this while working full time *and* taking a class (while attempting to hang on to single-girl things like going out to dinner once in a while and not letting my apartment get nasty enough to grow mold)? And finally, will this work as a diet? (I hope to have the answer to this last one sometime before that wedding I'm going to next year.)

Finally, this is only possible because I moved into an apartment with a *real* kitchen (i.e., there's an oven). My last apartment had a minifridge, 2 burners, a microwave balanced precariously on a shelf, and a toaster in the corner. My idea of home-made dinner looked something like this:


Mmmmm, rice in a bag...

Oh yea, and I'm going to attempt to make mostly *healthy* things ... I'm not going to pretend that making a cake from scratch makes it magically good for me :) Also, I don't want anything I make to wind up on here: http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/ (though I think some of the pictures are hilarious).

Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave comments/suggestions!
~Selwa