Blue.

 My "shoe thing" started when I was about 13 or 14 years old. I remember the moment. Sitting at the kitchen table flipping through the latest issue of Seventeen magazine ...or maybe it was Tiger Beat... I turned the page and there they were. Blue suede Mary-Janes with dark blue trim and a little flower design on the toe in the same darker blue suede as the trim. I remember the feelings wrapped up in that moment. Wonder that something so lovely could exist...Lust so overwhelming I had a knot in my stomach for want of those shoes...Sadness at the reality of knowing I could never own them because my parents simply couldn't afford the extravagance of blue shoes. That was the only time I ever asked my mom for something specific that I knew she couldn't give me. But the shoes were so pretty I simply had to ask...of course she said no....I didn't need shoes...the pair I had were fine. I tore that page out of the magazine and kept it for years.

My first job right out of high-school? Working in a shoe store. Sometimes the universe just throws something wonderful right in your lap. My fate was sealed. I was officially a shoe freak.
I'm thinking maybe next week I'll go shopping...feeling a need to be extravagant...maybe in blue shoes.

If you can't stand the heat...

There's just something amazing about time spent in the kitchen. I happen to believe that cooking can be just as therapeutic to your soul as religion...as healing as medicine. It is our most basic human instinct to find, prepare and consume food...yet so many don't understand the 'prepare' part of that equation.

My favorite room in our house is the kitchen. It is a small, yet well functioning room that is all mine. It is also in need of some major remodeling, but for the time being, it works just fine. There is a window over the sink that gives me a view of the patch of woods beyond our backyard. I watch the seasons pass from that window...trees going from green to yellow-orange to gray...making salads, sandwiches and sweet tea in summer...chili, stews and cocoa in winter. From that window, I've watched generations of bluebirds build nests in an upturned coffee can hung on a fence post. (This year we changed the coffee can to an actual bluebird house...it made no matter...the birds still came.) Rain, hail, snow and sunshine all seen from my kitchen window.

Obviously, I've spent some quality time in the kitchen but I'm not there just for the scenery. I know how to 'work the room'. Growing up in a southern household means knowing how to cook, really cook..as in putting more than 3 things together in a pan or a bowl in such a way as to make them healthy and appetizing. Sure, I can open up a bag of field greens salad and crack the lid on a bottle of raspberry vinaigrette...but that doesn't require anything other than opposable thumbs. If you have access to water, fire and the grocery store, you can cook. (It doesn't hurt to have salt, pepper and a good Hungarian paprika either.)

Over the years my cooking style has evolved greatly. I grew up in Michigan, raised by southern parents. In the food part of my brain, Michigan is all about boiled potatoes and Jello molds, punctuated once a year by the sheer joy of apple cider and cinnamon donuts. In my 20's I moved to Rhode Island...the place where I truly became who I am today... where I learned to love things like crabmeat,iced coffee, cannolis and linguica, clam cakes from Aunt Carrie's in Point Judith...yes, Rhode Island is the reason I will hurt somebody for a decent plate of fried calamari. Things get serious at the calamari. Southeastern New England made me see food differently...as an adventure, as a challenge. It made me unafraid to try new things...in the kitchen, I mean...I'm not going to eat bugs...or jump out of an airplane.

Nothing in my house gives me more joy than stepping into my door-less, obsessively organized, walk-in pantry. (The pantry used to have doors, but I move fast in the kitchen. After smacking myself in the face with the louvered doors one too many times, I dug my screwdriver out of the junk drawer and took care of it.) The pantry houses infinite possibility from which real happiness can be cooked up. If I'm having a bad day, the warm, nutty fragrance of jasmine rice cooking can take it all away. I get giddy when I'm not sure what to fix for supper, then a look around the pantry shows me the makings of a yummy, comforting casserole. We won't even talk about all the joys of butter, flour and sugar.

People don't cook enough anymore. We spend time late at work, at activities for our kids, or with our faces plastered to our gadgets. We run by the drive thru and purchase processed, preservative filled junk to feed ourselves and our family. We go to restaurants where the food is prepared in mostly unhealthy ways by people who don't love us...don't even know us. Food shouldn't be convenient...it should take time. It doesn't have to be pretty or expensive. It just has to taste good. It's not that difficult. Spend time in your kitchen. Get to know it. Ignore your microwave; dig out your pans (knowing that if you have to dig them out, they're probably in the wrong place). Challenge yourself in the kitchen at least once a week. Get out your cookbook and make something from scratch...if you don't have a cookbook, buy one...a real one with actual pages that will get splattered with evidence of your culinary adventures.

The next time you want a cup of cocoa on a cold day...make it...on the stove...in a saucepan. Don't just rip open an envelope and dump it in a cup. Milk, sugar, cocoa...you can't screw that up. If you have kids, let them help. When you're done drinking your cocoa, go outside and find a good spot in the yard. Plant a post in the ground and hang a birdhouse from it...or a coffee can. You'll thank me, come spring.
Kim

I will...

...try to post as often as possible. As some of you know, I've been trying to write my first novel. It's slow going as life keeps on getting in the way. The blog will help keep my head in the right place. A creative place.
...occasionally post photos. When I do, they will be my own. Please don't use them without permission.
I hope we all have some fun here. :)
Kim