use real butter

[It’s NaBloWriMo day #9]

I talk about food quite a bit here on urb. (Okay, I talk quite a bit in general.) I love food. You love food. There is great joy to be found in food.

Think about it. What basic functions do humans perform? We breathe. We eliminate waste products including carbon dioxide. We sleep. We eat and drink. Yet, food and beverage have been elevated to levels light-years beyond the rest of the human essentials. And the disparity between those of us who enjoy and those who go hungry… well, it’s enormous.

If you have been reading urb for the past week, you know I’ve tossed my hat into the ring and joined my beautiful friend, Tami of Running with Tweezers and several other food bloggers in her Eat on $30 project which begins this Sunday. I’ll definitely be talking about that next week, so please follow along and join the discussion. Awareness is key.

Last month, I posted about an opportunity I am honored to be a part of: The Awaken Your Senses Challenge sponsored by Quaker Oats and Good Bite. Short-term memory? Need a recap? Too lazy to click on the link? :) Good Bite has brought twelve food bloggers together to share their favorite food memories. Chef David Lawrence (of Good Bite, sweetiepie) recreates these food memories by snazzing up some Quaker oatmeal. Every two weeks, Good Bite rounds up four of the bloggers’ food memories in video and they go head to head in a voting competition. Each round produces one semi-finalist and in the end three bloggers will duke it out for the most votes. So why should you care about voting for the bloggers? It’s not about the bloggers, silly! It’s about the charities they are championing. The good people at Quaker are offering a $500 donation to each blogger’s chosen food charity – but the WINNER gets $10,000 donated to their food charity!

That is a hefty chunk of change. More than that, it will help to feed a lot of people.

Catherine of weelicious.com emerged victorious from round one. Congratulations, Catherine! Now she gets to cool her heels while the remaining eight bloggers vie for the two empty semi-finalist slots.

i’m on good bite and i NEED your vote!

That’s right! I’m up this week in ROUND TWO. This is huge for me because I don’t do video, but my piddly issues are irrelevant when given the opportunity to help a good cause. Plus, my fellow round two-ers are really awesome people: sweet Kath of Kath Eats Real Food, Marc of No Recipes (someone I admire), and my dear friend, Diane of White on Rice Couple.

my charity: farm to school network

There are children in this country whose best meal of the day is their school lunch. The National Farm to School Network works to make that meal healthy and fresh by connecting school lunch programs with local farmers. Exposing young people to fresh produce and educating them on where food comes from helps to promote long-term healthy eating habits. Our nation’s family and local farms benefit too. It’s about community, education, health, sharing… it’s about our future. Take a look at this gorgeous brochure from Farm to School. Seeing those adorable kids gardening and digging in the dirt puts a huge smile on my face.

So how can you help?

1) Visit Quaker Talk on YouTube (just click the link – I made it easy peasy for ya!) in the next two weeks.

2) Click on the Vote or Watch & Vote button.

3) Select my video (it isn’t always in the same position depending on how you get there, so you’ll have to actually READ for my topping: Cherries Jubilee) and click on the GREEN THUMB to vote for my topping!



4) Spread the word.

Really now, we’re all friends and these are all awesome charities and terrific food bloggers. It’s not about the winning, it’s about the giving. Go vote and be a part of this effort to raise hunger awareness and to help a good cause win $10,000. You have two weeks, so please vote! From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

NaBloWriMo day 5!

I just spent the past hour planning my food menu for next week and I haven’t even thought about our food menu for this week. But there is a good reason for that.

Oh wait, here’s another picture from the shoot. The big stands are pretty impressive, even with lots of leaves missing.

the reds in this area never fail

So back to the menu planning… Several months ago, I saw that Tami of Running with Tweezers had endeavored to feed herself for a week on $30. She’s doing it again next week and I’m joining her. Why? Because a lot of Americans live on $30 a week for their food… actually, quite a few live on less than that each week. Sobering to say the least. Besides, I think Tami is the bomb. I met her at BlogHer Food 09 in San Francisco and the woman is the real deal. She’s terrific.

tami enjoys some peking duck at dim sum

There is a difference between sympathy and empathy. I can sympathize with people who can barely afford to feed their families, but I can’t really empathize. I’m fortunate enough that I’ve never ever ever had to go hungry for financial reasons. In planning out my menu for next week, I can see that things I take for granted – buying soy sauce in bulk or buying ten pound bags of organic brown short grain rice – don’t work for people who don’t have the money up front. People who have money are in a position to save money. People who don’t have money… they get screwed. Estimating my costs and eliminating advantages like my half gallon of sesame oil means I have to buy a small bottle, which per unit volume of sesame oil is outrageously expensive.

The planning stage has already been eye-opening. I rather expected that paying for spices and other ingredients would cost more, but… I hadn’t counted on it being such a substantial fraction of the $60 budget for the week (we get $60 because I’m feeding Jeremy and myself – so that’s $30 per person). Sure, I could just buy several packets of ramen and mac and cheese and call it a success, but living on that junk long term isn’t a solution. What I’m attempting to do is prepare relatively balanced and healthy foods that taste good for under $60 for the week. My gimmes are basic things like salt, pepper, oil, and butter. Already, I’ve had to cut out some of our regular produce, but we’ll make it work. Follow along next week starting Sunday, October 11th. I’ll be blogging about it as will other bloggers joining Tami on this challenge. If you’d like to participate, give Tami a holler over at Running with Tweezers or reply to her on Twitter (@runwithtweezers). We’ll be tweeting with the hashtag #eaton30.

Recipe: grilled prosciutto-wrapped asparagus

menu for hope OR get off your arse!
I just want to remind you all that Menu for Hope is still going on for a couple more days. You can find all of the fantastic prizes being offered here and then go and buy raffle tickets here. Oh, and yes, I’m offering a prize as well! Take your pick from these four photos.

how many people get an email from…
…the crater rim of Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano on Earth (in Antarctica)? I did! My pal is imaging the surface of the lava lake in the crater. How f’ing cool is that? VERY.

i like winter in colorado
Well, it looks like winter is taking the nation by storm *snort*, except possibly at Tartelette’s house. I’ll have to bag up some Colorado snow in a ziploc and mail it to her, poor thing. We went to Breckenridge today to enjoy some express lifts on the big mountains. While we love our local hill (and especially the ten minute drive from house to ski hill), the big resorts are really something else, despite the longer drive (anywhere from 1-2 hours). As we walked to the gondola from the parking lot, Jeremy said to me, “If I lived someplace else, I’d probably wish I were skiing all the time. Since we live here, I wake up and think, ‘Should I go skiing today?'” The answer is: hell yes, go skiing!

the view across the valley – snow capped gorgeousness

**Jump for more butter**