it's beautiful here.

The Real Reason

There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good.” ― Brian Andreas

Super Foxy Smooshface

Melanie in the Kitchen

A few days ago, I decided that I wanted to bake a cake from scratch this weekend, and yesterday, I did (how's that for follow-through?). Sort of. I made cupcakes. Pink Lemonade Cupcakes, to be specific. They were delicious. The recipe only yields nine cupcakes, which is still too many if you live alone and have a severe cupcake addiction. I dropped four of them off at my cousin Traci's house, took two to my parents, and saved one for Kelly, which I delivered tonight on my way to the grocery store. I ate one myself last night and well, I suppose it's possible that I had the last one for breakfast this morning. Here's a photo of one, if you're curious. Tasty little thing.

I have a new theory about why people were never very unhealthy in terms of consuming excesses of sugar and junk food back in my grandmother's time - it has to do with how expensive it is to bake a cake and how much labor is involved. It makes me want to save cake for occasions - birthdays, holidays - and to only bake from scratch from now on. We'll see how that goes.

I've been cooking a lot lately. Definitely not every day, but I'm getting there - baby steps. I'm working to build up a solid bank of personally tried and true recipes, adding something new every week and keeping up with favorites. It might not seem like much, but trust me; it's a pretty big deal for a single girl who was completely anti-kitchen a few months ago.

I'm leaving on Saturday to visit Missy for a week in the great state of Massachusetts where I will enjoy lots of snuggles and New Englandy food, but for this week, I've committed to eating at home every day. Here are a few of the things I'll be cooking:

Bowtie Lasagna

Oven "Fried" Pickles

Roasted Potatoes and Lemon with Dill

Oma's Sour Cream Chicken (made this last week and it is so good)

Oven Roasted Garlic Brussels Sprouts

In November, I'm going to start cracking open my favorite cookbooks (hey, just because I haven't enjoyed cooking for myself historically doesn't mean that I don't love cookbooks or that I don't know my way around a kitchen - I was raised by an amazing cook, and one does pick up a thing or two over a lifetime at her mother's knee), and I'm pretty excited about that. Can't always depend on food blogs to tell me what's good, after all, can I?

Why I prefer to be called FAT *

* and why you should, too **

** unless you're not fat. because that would be weird and body-dysmorphic-ish

Many of us who choose to give up dieting get very wrapped up in the question of whether diets “work,” or whether permanent weight loss is statistically likely for a majority of individuals. This is understandable, as giving up dieting -- especially giving up dieting when you are a legitimate, no-holds-barred Fat Person -- is the equivalent of thumbing one’s nose against what we’re told is good for us, and for our health. It’s a little crazy, a little rebellious.

On any other day, I might go into a long explanation about it, but Lesley says beautifully what I've been saying for years about the word fat and why it is so liberating. So, you know. Do yourself a huge favor and read this. Pun absolutely intended.

Hello life, I love you.

I was scrolling through a backlog of blog posts in Google Reader mindlessly tonight (in an effort to avoid going to bed), when this post caught my eye and I thought to myself, "wow, this is just gorgeous. This is breathtaking." So I scrolled right back up and naturally, it was Josh Goleman's work. Earlier tonight I was talking to Carletta about photography (like we do), and I mentioned Josh Goleman (again). His work is my very favorite. I'm sure you can see why.

Isn't he something? Here is my favorite of his wedding shoots. The man has some serious talent behind a camera lens, and more passion and heart than most photographers do. I'm tempted to throw a shindig myself just to hire him to photograph it.

This week has been crazy. My partner in crime (Tiffiny) was here visiting and we went to see some of our friends play some shows (and recorded an acoustic session for The Ruckus!), baked cakes and cupcakes and made spaghetti (with the sauce), ate delicious food, and drove and drove and drove. I'll have more to say as soon as I've rested up a little bit, but there's still one more show and a few more friends to see tomorrow. Meanwhile, here are a few things we did and saw:

Life With Foxy

The Sweetest Thing

Very few things parallel the love that I have for my friends. I took a road trip to visit three of my very favorites on Florida's east coast for the weekend, landing at Bri and Caryn's house in Palm Coast very late on Friday night, and meeting Jenn on Saturday morning at Riverside Arts Market (this meeting with Jenn was a good ten years in the making - we've been friends for so long that I think ours must have been the most overdue hug in history).

From there, we ventured out for brunch, then to San Marco for shopping, where we exclaimed over expensive pillows and met chubby shop dogs. Also, I bought a pair of Clarks for a song. We ended our afternoon with Jenn as all things should begin and end, with cupcakes, then Bri drove us around St. Augustine while I emoted enthusiastically over how much I loved everything. On our way back to Bri and Caryn's (and a very important college football game), we discovered a castle, which seems appropriate somehow. Then sweet corn fritters and delicious Ruben sandwiches were had, and football games watched, and hugs hugged, and sleeps slept.

It was such a sweet, sweet weekend. I always feel most myself in the arms of my friends.

There's a short, sweet photo set here.

The Art of Being

During his month long artist in residency at the Ace Hotel in NYC, photographer Chase Jarvis explores and celebrates the art of the snapshot and invites the world to further pursue their own creative endeavors.

the more I think about it, study it, and live it, the more I can say definitively that the photographic snapshot has quietly emerged as one of our culture’s–if not the world’s–most unsung creative heroes. - Chase Jarvis

This, to me, is breathtaking (thank you so much to my darling friend Leslie for showing me this and saying that it made her think of me - my friends, oh how they know me). I've always been a champion of the snapshot. It's what I do myself, after all - capture a moment and hold it forever.

The noble leftover

Farfalle with Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter and chicken added in after the fact. So delicious on the third day, just taken out of the fridge, warmed up in a saucepan (I made a conscious choice not to bring my microwave here when I moved in December and so far, no regrets), and voila, lunch.

The mundane act of enjoying leftovers wouldn't be such a notable occasion for a normal person, but I had to overcome a mental block to do it. Except in cases of extreme deliciousness (my mom's spaghetti, my grandmother's vegetable soup, and always, always cake), I have been adverse to eating leftovers since I was a kid. But I'm learning to be less spoiled and princessy where food is concerned, and that includes embracing the noble leftover. It's a good thing.

On Tomato Sauce

Let's recap: two weeks ago, I quit fast food, a little over a week ago, I started cooking, and a few days ago, I quit drinking pop. Baby steps. As a result of all this quitting, I have been embracing the suck like you would not believe. It's going rather well, all things considered.

Speaking of cooking, tonight I made Marcella Hazan's famous Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter. It is my very favorite tomato sauce, and I promise that if you make it, you'll never make another tomato sauce, ever again. Lots of popular food bloggers have written about it, but I first learned of it last year thanks to my friend Rachel James, who is one of my favorite people on the Internet.

This recipe calls for canned, peeled plum tomatoes, but food52 has swayed me into the fresh tomato camp for next time - consider the sodium factor if nothing else, but fresh tomatoes are splendid, and farmers' market season is just around the corner here!

This recipe serves four, so I made enough pasta for three servings (tonight's dinner, tomorrow's lunch and some to take to my mama to try), which left me with a serving of sauce to freeze. Try it, you won't regret it. This sauce needs no pretty words, so that's as much as I'll say on the subject.

Which leaves us with detox tears. Anyone who has quit any kind of chemical (for me, it's sugar and caffeine and whatever other kind of garbage fast food restaurants put into the garbage they serve) can tell you how emotional it can make you. I suppose that there are people for whom this is not a problem, but I am not one of those people. For instance, Netflix recently started streaming Heavy, an A&E docudrama. Now, I hate reality TV and I refuse to watch it, but I love documentaries, and Heavy straddles the line between the two with just enough give to make it okay in my book. And it makes me cry. A lot.

I still have issues with the obvious reality TV gimmicks like shaming fat people by forcing them to wear tiny hospital gowns that don't fit them instead of giving them gowns for larger folks, and making them shake their bare bellies for the world, and making their equally fat spouses say things like I just don't want Bill to die! (which is completely valid, but so obviously scripted). But those are really the only issues that I have. These are people who have health problems like high blood pressure, past strokes, blown out knees, and a variety of other illnesses. They don't just take healthy fat people and ship them off to the farm, which was another positive point for me. These are my people, y'all. Their struggles to get healthy are my struggles. I relate. I love these people.

And so I weep. It's a thing. I'm sure I'll get over it eventually.