Good idea, Whitney

A few months ago it finally occurred to me that when people ask what I do with my time as an unemployed student, I should just say "cooking" and leave it at that. I spent my first year of college studying food, culture, work, political economy, globalization, agriculture, sustainability, race, gender, class, social oppression, people's movements and more, but all with a connection to food. This year I took off from school and began to act on what I'd learned.

I started my first garden in containers. I cut out most processed foods from my diet. I've been trying to eat as seasonally and locally as possible for about a year now. I shop at the food co-op and the farmers market. I've spent the summer harvesting, canning, pickling, drying, freezing, and preserving as much food as possible to cheer my pantry and my tummy through the winter. I love to bake. And I cook daily. Food has been, is, and will always be the most constant element of my life. It's only recently that I've realized and started doing all of this, but it's become my biggest joy and passion. Ultimately, it's the foundation of my lifestyle. It's not something I push on others or want to hold others up to. It's just what feels good to me, what satisfies my mind, body, and soul, what I'm economically and physically able to do, and what I've chosen.

Until now, I'd only ever bookmarked recipes and drooled over other people's food blogs. I never really make time to journal about other things so joining the "blogosphere" had never really crossed my mind. Then this week my friend Whitney told me that she'd started her own food blog, The Foodture is Now, primarily to have a record of all her cooking exploits and good ideas later down the road. "Wow," I thought, "I'd never thought of it like that." So I'm taking her cue and starting my own food log. A flog, if you will.

I'm hoping this flog will inspire as well as be a window into my life for friends and family. And, depending on how religiously I keep up with it, be a time capsule of all my creative concoctions for me to look back on when I'm 95 and still a Goop.

To good eats and sharing the journey,

Kate