Monday, December 12, 2011

Evolution of Food

One of the kids asked me the other day what Cristina and I ate when we were first married. It got me thinking about how our cooking and eating has evolved over the past 18 years. Since I'm trying to blog more, I decided I'd blog about it. Might be boring to some, but at least it will be documented. One of these days I'm going to get around to turning my blog into an actual book. Nice keepsake for the kids.

It's important to remember that Cristina and I met when we were barely out of high school. We were both 19, in fact. I turned 20 a week after we met. Still kids.

Directly out of high school, I lived in a dorm, Trusler Hall, with Burton Meahl. We had food cards which our parents put money on. They could be used at any of the eating places on campus (this was before there was a proliferation of fast food places on campus...the Reitz Union actually had a cafeteria!) Burt and I almost always ate breakfast in our dorm room (cold cereal, coffee, juice, that sort of thing) and we'd eat lunch and dinner out: burgers or tuna melts from the little restaurant in neighboring Graham Hall, or sandwiches from the Orange and Brew, a cool little bistro at the Reitz Union that used to sell beer (thus the name) before the campus went dry. At the Orange and Brew, you gave your name when you ordered, and when the food was ready, they'd call your name out. We ate there so often that to make things fun, we'd give fake names just to get a laugh out of hearing them called out. "Order for Elmo!"

My parents moved to Gainesville not long after I started college, so I would eat dinner with them sometimes too.

During my second semester, I was feeling the need for some spending money (not to mention I'd blown through my food card too fast) so I got a job at the AMC Theatres in the Oaks Mall. Now popcorn and soda became a significant part of my diet. I spent the summer of 1991 working at the theater (funny to think that I may have sold Cristina some popcorn or torn her ticket during the summer before she moved to Atlanta).



I lived with my parents during summer of 1991. Worked a lot and spent most of my time with new AMC friends. At the theater, the managers would sometimes trade out with nearby restaurants: swap movie passes for food. So during my years at AMC, I ate many meals from Bono's BBQ, The Mill, and an Italian place in the mall that is no longer there.

Fall of 91, Dominick Cecere and I shared an off-campus apartment at Park Place. We fancied ourselves a bit more civilized, more mature, so we cooked more at home. There was still plenty of pizza and eating out, but this was the year I remember grocery shopping for actual meals, albeit highly-processed ones like Banquet frozen entrees and Hamburger Helper. Iceberg lettuce with green olives was a side salad staple. And lots of ramen noodles. Occasionally we'd buy a big bag of frozen chicken wings and fry up our own hot wings.


Summer of 92 was when I met Cristina. One of the first meals I cooked for her was Polish sausage (not that you really cook Polish sausage...you just heat it up). She was just starting her vegetarian period, so it was an odd choice for a meal. As we got closer and closer to marrying, we would cook meals together. I remember lots of packets of flavored rice or pasta, cans of black beans, and boxed frozen veggies, like peas-carrots or broccoli-cauliflower. If we ate out, it was usually Gumby's pizza or Hungry Howie's. We ate a lot at her parents' house, at least once a week. Her dad almost always grilled steaks, so I could get my meat fix.

After the wedding, we lived in Corry Village. Cristina still worked at the Health Department while I started my senior year of college. Food was still mostly vegetarian, still highly-processed. I think she may have eaten Tuna. I vaguely remember Tuna Helper being fairly common. I also don't remember when we got our first rice cooker, but it was probably around this period. Once we got a rice cooker, we cooked more rice from scratch instead of the flavored rice packets and rice-a-roni kind of stuff.

Summer of 94: our first trip to Costa Rica together. It was challenging for Cristina to be a lactose-intolerant vegetarian...but not too challenging. I remember going to a vegetarian restaurant once with her dad, brother, and sister. Elena and Ramon complained about the quality of the food.

Over the years of our marriage, especially when the first pregnancy came along, we tried to eat healthier. I can't pinpoint a specific event that made us try to eat a more whole foods diet. Part of it was spending time with my sister Lynn and longing to emulate her attempts at healthy eating. Part of it was influenced by the circle of friends Cristina made in the natural childbirth/breastfeeding world. I know when we got pregnant with Sofia, we made our first conscientiously-planned weekly menu. We planned breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, with an effort to have a certain number of yellow and orange vegetables every week, the right balance of protein and carbs, etc. Since Cristina was a vegetarian, we paid extra care to getting a balanced diet while pregnant. Carnation Instant Breakfast was a staple.

When Cristina was pregnant with Alex, she had cravings for Thanksgiving turkey, and that was the beginning of the end of her vegetarianism. She still doesn't eat much red meat or pork, but we eat plenty of chicken and turkey.

We had a bread-maker for several years, but it's been a while since Cristina made homemade bread.

Soon after Alex was born, an event that had a big influence on our diet was joining a CSA (community-supported agriculture). We received so much organic produce every week that we had to eat more produce than we ever had before just to keep up with it. Plus, we tried new things that we'd never tried before, like arugula and swiss chard. We gave it up the CSA when we moved to Phoenix, but we would love to get back into a CSA when we can afford it.



In the past few years, menus have come and gone for various reasons of health and budget. A handful of cookbooks have been influential in my own cooking, including my favorite, America's Test Kitchen. I first butterflied and brined a turkey back in 2001 (I think) and I haven't cooked a turkey any other way since. I got my own grill in 2007 and I cook a pretty good steak. But the majority of our meals today are the old standbys: rice and beans, pasta with maranara, homemade quiche, and such. The biggest difference now is that we use fresher ingredients, organic sometimes, but not as often as we'd like. We eat brown rice more, which I prefer to cook in a real pot instead of a rice cooker, and I make my own maranara sauce, with multi-grain pasta.

We're not super-healthy in our eating, but we've come a long way since the packets of Lipton pasta and canned peas. And I think the stuff we make now is not only healthier but a lot tastier.

And what is Alex and Bella's favorite thing to eat? Ramen noodles. Go figure.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Update

Wow. Was July really the last time I blogged? Dreadful. Not that my blog-writing friends and family have done much better (except for Helena!). But I can't let that be an excuse. I will try to be a leader, not a follower. Maybe if I start blogging again on a regular basis, it will encourage others to follow.

I hate when my yearbook staff gives me excuses for not getting their work done. But I spend a lot of time with them, and they rub off on me, so I'm going to join the excuse club for a paragraph or two. Facebook. I blame my lack of blogging on Facebook. Sometimes I'll make an interesting observation or an astute realization, but instead of writing a blog post about it, like I maybe would have done pre-Facebook, it's easier and faster to condense it into a status update.

I can also blame the energy-sapping yearbook, but this year has been a lot easier, so that excuse is growing whiskers.


Long posts of text can be boring, so I'll throw in a random photo of something cute. Bella will appreciate it, if nothing else.


So when you haven't blogged for 6 months, what do you write about to dip your toe back in the frigid waters of Lake Blog? An update, that's what.

My Second Year Back at GHS
This year has gone well. I got my room more situated, to my liking. Got my IKEA lamps set up, so I can keep the big florescents off. Got blinds installed so I can make it nice and dark for my SMART board. I got an extra dry-erase board installed, and bought a full-size refrigerator for lunch and snack storage. And we are so much further ahead on the yearbook than we were last year. It takes a lot of the pressure off. As usual, I have one very challenging English class, the kind of class that makes me daydream about quitting and driving a UPS truck, but I've summoned enough patience over the years to not let a class like that get to me too much. One of the things I love about teaching is the cyclical nature of the job. Every year has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A dying and a rebirth. Inhalation and exhalation. This annoying class will eventually move on. And next year there will be another. Surfers perpetually hunt for the perfect wave. Teachers wait for the perfect year, when all their classes are like a dream. I laugh when I hear fellow teachers who teach all AP classes, or all IB classes, complain about their jobs. They usually complain about having so many papers to grade. They've forgotten--if they've ever experienced it all--what it's like to have a class of low-income, neglected-at-home, street-hardened kids who have no interest in being in school, are on a fast-track to dropping out, and may or may not make it to your class depending on whether they have a court appearance. "My kids are struggling with Antigone," they whine. "They were supposed to read the last 50 pages last night and almost half of them didn't do it!" Whatever.


Random explosion


Cristina
For the past 4 years or so, Cristina has worked part-time in a Waldorf Kindergarten classroom. She loves Waldorf education, and she loves being a mother, but she does not love working with small children as a paid job, day in and day out. So when she discovered that Florida requires a "license to touch" to practice Jin Shin Jyutsu, she decided to go the massage school. Not the cheapest route, but a versatile choice. And we have one of the nation's best massage schools right here in Gainesville. She's about halfway through the 6-month program right now and doing well. We'll be buying a professional massage table this week, which she plans to take to NC during Christmas break to get some of her required extra-curricular massages done. I remember when my sister Bonnie went through massage school and gave massages to family members during a family get-together. In fact, I think that was my first massage.


Sofia
Sofia's second year of high school has gone smoothly. Classes are fine, but for the past 3 months, it's all been about band. Her marching band season ended a couple of weeks ago with a state championship, so no matter what happens in her last 2 years, she will always know what it feels like to be a part of championship performance. The show was incredible. Here's an article from the school board website, and an article from the Gainesville Sun. I'm always amazed at how this group of kids--and when you see them during down-time they really are just a bunch of kids--can work so hard with such concentration and dedication to pull off something so complex and beautiful on so many levels. That transformation from kids-to-professionals is the coolest part for me. I admire the craftsmanship that they display. I'm so proud of Sofia!

Alex
As a 5th-grader, Alex has had the honor of being a safety patrol. Unfortunately, one incident of tomfoolery caused his day-glo belt to be taken away, but he's confident that he'll earn it back. In addition to learning specific responsibilities, safety patrols also get to go to Washington, DC at the end of the year. Not sure how we'll pay for that yet, but we'll figure something out. Alex's reading has continued to improve. He's reading at grade level, if not above. He reads every night before going to bed, and he completes novels with comforting regularity. He's not quite at Sofia's level of reading addiction, but that can be a bonus. He still expends, as he should, a good bit of energy on the trampoline or throwing the football. He's looking forward to another round of Upward flag football in the spring. He played Upward soccer this fall, but he'd like to try regular 11-man soccer, with full-sized goals and actual goalies. Stay tuned on that. Some of his school artwork is on display at the Thomas Center over the next few weeks.

Bella
Bella's reading has also grown by leaps and bounds. She is a much different reader than she was last summer when she still sounded out most of her words. She reads books on her grade level smoothly, often sounding out unfamiliar words, trying different sounds until she gets something that makes sense. Basically, what readers do. She enjoys Expressions Learning Arts Academy and loves her teacher, Ms. K (Sofia's kindergarden teacher). Ms. K is an avid birder, so Bella has learned a lot about birds. Her favorites are the tufted titmouse and the yellow-breasted blackbird (I think). She draws birds, she talks birds, she recognizes birds when we're oput and about. It's pretty cool. I've never had much interest in birds, or flowers, or knowing names and info about the natural world, but I'm glad she enjoys it. She has good friends in her class, and last weekend went on her first sleepover birthday party. Her improvement in reading is making it harder for us to spell things that we don't want her to know about.

Obviously, a lot more has happened than what I've written here. My Subaru is dying, if it's not dead already. I sold my motorcycle to help pay for massage school. I've been tutoring a couple of 8th grade boys on the weekends for extra money. But this post gives everyone a little taste of what's been going on, and more importantly, gets me blogging again.

Next time I think of something that would make a decent blog post, I'll try not to cop-out to Facebook.