The Early Days of Lent...

Happy Friday everyone!

I don't know about the weather where you are, but here in Ohio, March has certainly come in like a lion with frigid temperatures and even some snow, which is totally normal for this time of year. However, it's about an 180 degree turnaround from the spring-like temperatures we experienced last week. Hence, I am very much craving some comfort food at the moment, but can't reach for candy, cake, or ice cream (does a muffin count?). It's going to be a long 40 days...

Cookbooks...
In my effort to slowly declutter my house as an ongoing project,  I decided to go through my cookbooks last week. That turned out to be an epic fail as I only ended up getting rid of a couple - from my chocolate collection if you can believe it. There are a few that could go without me minding too much (since I've made copies of the recipes I want to keep), but as they're small/thin, I see no harm in keeping them for now. There's also one cookbook I would probably never consult, but am keeping for the nostalgia value, and that's Alice's Brady Bunch Cookbook. On at least every other page is an anecdote about the show, so it's a "Brady Bunch" trivia lover's dream. After having flipped through the probably 30 or so cookbooks that I own, it's prompted me to add to my New Year's resolutions, and that is: "to consult a cookbook for ideas rather than immediately pulling out one of my many binders of recipes." I'll let you know how well I follow-through on this.

Lent is Here...

Yes, I'm one of the many Catholics who give up the cliche candy (and cake & ice cream) for Lent, but only because it's a bad habit and crutch that I could do without (but honestly, have no plans to give up even after Lent). Hence, I bagged up all my candy bars and bag of Mocha Dove chocs and put it in the basement on the shelf where my junk food stash used to reside (I bagged that up and plan to donate to the Hilliard Food Pantry). Now it looks like Andrew is the junk food addict since most of what's on that shelf now is his stuff: a bag of Caramel Apple flavored popcorn, a package of Biscoff biscuits, a bag of Noblesse biscuits, and a bunch of items bought on his last visit to the UK.

I also went through my junk food stash in the freezer, that being the only other place where I keep goodies. I swear I don't also have candy bars stashed in my sock drawer or behind the books on my many bookshelves (though these would be good places to hide them if I was so inclined). Andrew suggested I start by culling the Goat Cheese Pumpkin pie I made last Thanksgiving since 'it doesn't look that good.' It didn't have the same smooth appearance of a typical pumpkin pie since the surface was dimpled with little bits of goat cheese that didn't quite dissolve in the pumpkin. It's probably a sin to waste food, but I think it's also a sin to over indulge in something, or maybe that's just my guilt for eating junk food. Either way, I tossed the pie and am not going to fret about it. I didn't get rid of anything else, but at least took stock of what's there, and later ate one of  the Japanese pastries I bought at Christmas.

How Real Couples Spend their Sundays...

Recently I was reading this article on Apartment Therapy.com (http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-real-couples-spend-their-sundays-240859) and I have to say no one I know does any of those things (and yes, I'm more than a little jealous). I suppose this has as much to do with the geography of where you live and what kind of a dwelling you reside in as anything else. For those of us who live in the suburbs and own a house, we often spend Sundays (and Saturdays too) doing housework or DIY, because when you own a house, there's always something that needs doing. It's probably a universal that everyone does some grocery shopping, unless you order yours online (tempting, but only if you never order meat or produce because you'll get whatever they can grab, and it might not always be the nicest items). I also go to mass every weekend. Those are the constants. Otherwise, I occasionally pop into the library or some other store. Shopping will probably always be my favorite Saturday afternoon activity, a habit I don't know if I can ever break (something I should probably work on during Lent).

I think my ideal Sunday would be spent like someone in NYC might do - spend the morning at a coffee shop or cute little restaurant somewhere reading the NY Times, then in the afternoon peruse the shelves of a used bookstore (somewhere like The Strand) or go thrift shopping. These are things you can do here (even in Hilliard!), but the atmosphere isn't quite the same (though spending the morning in the Short North would be about as close as you can come). 

Actually, one of my favorite Sundays was spent downtown last May when Andrew and I went out for pancakes at Super Chef (they do a lot of fun themed hotcakes) and then strolled over to the nearby art museum, the library and Topiary Park, all free on Sundays!

Have a good weekend everyone!