B's in the kitchen

I love cooking for family and friends. Everything I know has been self-taught through many hours of Food Network TV, cookbooks and trial-and-error, as I have no formal training in the cooking/baking industry. I am on a quest to learn all that I can about the cooking world and share it with anyone and everyone interested.

I grew up watching my grandmother cook and remember wondering why in the world she started supper at noon. I mean, we rarely ate before 5:30 or 6:00. As I’ve gotten older and embarked on my own culinary journey, I’ve come to understand why she cooked all afternoon. Simply stated, she enjoyed cooking and I do too.

I watched Julia Child and Justin Wilson religiously as a kid. My Little Tykes kitchen was always in use and I mastered the art of the Easy Bake Oven while watching Julia master the art of French cuisine. I still remember my very first cookbook filled with simple recipes any child could make. Today, I read cookbooks like some people read novels and feel most calm when sitting at the kitchen table writing a recipe for the first time.

I want to share my passion for food and I've yet to figure out exactly how to do that. So, for now, I will share it here with anyone that cares to read. I’ve traded in my Little Tykes Kitchen and Easy Bake Oven for my professional cookware and other grown-up kitchen gadgets. I hope you will enjoy and try some of the recipes I share here. Feel free to ask questions or share your own recipes with me!

Cooper River Bridge Run

For the past 7 years, Brent and I have been participating in the Cooper River Bridge Run which is held in Charleston, SC. It's a 10K run over the famous Cooper River Bridge aka the Arthur J. Ravanell Bridge. We just love sharing in this event with 40,000 of our closest friends.

The day starts by arriving in downtown Charleston no later than 6:00 a.m., so that you can be bussed over to Mount Pleasant where the race begins. The wait for the bus is generally about an hour. Once the race begins, it's an endless obstacle course of strollers, walkers and speed runners. Trying to navigate the course while remaining on your feet is the true test. My favorite thing about this event, the costumes! You just never know what you are going to see. I've shared some of my favorites from this year's run below. I hope you enjoy!



This man juggled the entire race.



Almost to the top.

Just a few people...

Men in the Red Hat Society

The Easter Bunny got in on the festivities.

On the bus headed to the race.

On My Honor, I Will Try...

...To NOT eat another Girl Scout cookie!

On Sunday, I had a run in with the Girl Scouts and their damn cookies. You see, because they called to me from the grocery store entrance I bought 4 boxes (lemon-whateveritscalled, thin mints, dulce de leche and do-si-dos) of them. Unfortunately, I am definitely not the chick who can eat just one cookie or one serving for that matter. So in two days I’ve eaten a box of the lemon cookies. Oops! The other three boxes now reside in my freezer where they will probably die a slow death because I will forget they exist. My scale thanks me in advance.

Ash Wednesday

From dust you came and from dust you will be resurrected.

Last night I attended Ash Wednesday service. For those of you that don’t know, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season. Lent is the 40 day period leading up the super bowl Sunday for Christians a/k/a Easter. The goal of Lent is not to make a plan for change and follow it to the letter. Rather, the goal is to make a change that sinks deeply into life, drawing us closer to self, others, and God. Lent is about intentionally opening ourselves, preparing to receive God’s goodness.

My prayer for this Ash Wednesday is:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence O Lord,
Take not thy Holy Spirit from me,
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,
and renew a right spirit within me.

The Shack

I recently finished reading WM. Paul Young’s controversial book The Shack and (at the risk of sounding too cliche) if you read one book this year, let this be the book! The Shack is God as I have never seen him before. With every page, the complicated do’s and don’ts that distort a relationship into a religion were washed away as I gained a new understanding of God the Father (Papa), God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit (Sarayu) for the first time in my life.

The story centers around the abduction and murder of Missy Phillips, Mack’s youngest daughter, during a family vacation. Four years after the Great Sadness began, Mack is summoned back to The Shack where the horrid incident occurred to meet with God. As Mack walks back into his worst nightmare wondering where was this God during the worst moment of his life, his world is forever changed.

I hope you will read this book and share it with someone else.

Lessons Learned in Bootcamp

Three mornings per week at the ass-crack of dawn, I get up at 4:45 to attend a boot camp fitness class. A class I pay money to attend and be yelled at like some criminal in the prison system all in the name of fitness. I thought I would share these highly valuable lessons I have learned in such a short amount of time.

1. Boot Camp is a four-letter word.

2. Never tell the Sargent your name. Doing so will result in being called out periodically (frequently if you are like me and you need to stop and pick your heart up off the floor).

3. 100 pushups is considered a "warm-up."

4. Drill Sergeants are never nice. They are merely setting you up to have your ass kicked again.

5. The miracle mile involves running 55 flights of stairs should be called "It’s-a-miracle-if-you-don’t-die-trying-to-finish-it-mile."

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me?

Slow and Steady

It’s been a little over a month since I made the New Year’s resolutions and although I haven’t lost as much weight as I would like at this point, I have lost 4 pounds and maintained the resolutions. Everyday I’ve made a choice. Choices that furthered my goals or set them back. Some days I am so confident I’ll succeed it’s down right scary. Others I am so paranoid I’ll get stuck and ultimately fail that it’s difficult to push forward. At times, it feels like I am drowning, flapping all around, trying to make it. Then I realize I need to just calm down. Breathe. There is no drowning here as the water isn’t that deep.

The weight loss process is a tricky one and different for every person. I obviously didn’t get to be 30 pounds overweight (currently but 50 pounds ultimately) by eating properly and exercising as recommended. There have been many times in my life where I have chosen to take care of myself through food. While I’ve never been one to eat tons of junk food, I have been known to eat too much of the healthy stuff and healthy or not, its all about moderation. I used food to fill voids that food could never fill. I self-medicated with food throughout my father’s battle with cancer. I turned to food with the death of my grandmother. I used food to fill the holes that anxiety seemed to place inside of me. Food has filled many boring hours at the office and a lot of downtime at home alone while my husband travels. Food has been the source of every celebration my family has had and every mournful loss we have suffered as well. I’ve spent years working through my issues with food. Why do I eat, why do I eat what I eat, why do I eat when I eat? Some of those I can answer, some I’m still seeking. All I know is that it had to STOP.

So I stopped it. Oh the power that comes when you realize you are in fact strong enough to take control of your own life! That doesn’t mean I don’t want to turn to food, it just means I’m aware of when I want to turn to food and I find something else to do instead. Have I perfected this? No, but each day is another baby step in the right direction. I stopped waiting to feel like doing it and just started about the business of doing. I don’t always feel like working out, so what? I don’t always feel like coming to work, but I come to work. I don’t always feel like taking a shower, but I shower. I don’t always feel like doing laundry or the dishes but the dishes are done and so is the laundry. You get my point. The funny thing is that after each of those workouts I don’t feel like doing, I feel fantastic. I feel strong. I feel accomplished. I feel like I could conquer anything before me and I know I will because I feel the change in my soul.