Putting my food knowledge to good use: An exercise.

I know entirely too much about food and I am a writer who never writes anything. So why not start my own food blog? Maybe we'll talk Northeast Iowa local food or write some poetry or do some home cooking. I am really a Californian disguised as an Iowan. But since my husband is pastor of a rural church in Iowa, here I am in little Decorah. And Decorah is not without its virtues both for quality of life and food. In California I shopped anonymously at generic stores. But here I buy meat from a friend and am a loyal customer of a particular vendor of produce, a man of few words but lots of tasty tomatoes and extra veggies thrown into my bag. And this will be my 3rd year buying chicken from a family just outside of town.

Now let's talk rustic. There are very few isolated places left in the USA but we live in one of them. We are 70 miles from any large town and about 150 miles from any metropolitan area. So because of that our food habits have definitely changed. Goodbye, gyros and feta and hello, ham steaks:) At first I was scared but we have simplified and gone local. We also have discovered that you can make your own, of just about anything. Imagine making your own bread, pretzels, Moroccan food, etc... Now, I may have some advantages over most people. I have had a pretty good food education previous to moving here. I was raised in home where matzo ball soup was a far more frequent occurrence than boxed macaroni. And we are not Jewish. But more on my food history at a later date.

All of this is to say I am going to give blogging a try. In future blogs I will post some of my poetry, which often features food; talk about my unique food upbringing; relate future food ventures I have planned and last but not least I will talk about cooking and what I am doing in the kitchen.