What is My Recipe?

This is the first post in what I hope will be many for the FoodBuzz Project Food Blog Challenge. I am competing, along with more than a thousand other food bloggers, in a series of blog challenges to win prizes including a featured blog on www.foodbuzz.com. This is my response to the first challenge, which asks participants to create a post that defines them as a food blogger and that tells the reader why they should be the next food blog star. The entry will be voted on by judges and other participants. Readers can vote too, for a special reader's choice designation, but you will need to register at FoodBuzz. To vote for me, click on the Project Food Blog ad at right starting September 20.

So what makes me different as a food blogger? Like any good recipe, it’s the combination of ingredients:

Cooking By The Box Recipe

One Part Local, Fresh, Organic Vegetables

One Part Memories and Reflections

One Part Creativity

One Part Practicality and Midwest Sensibility

One Part Local, Fresh, Organic Vegetables

Local, fresh, organic vegetables from my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share are the main ingredients of this blog. This was my third summer buying a CSA share, but my first writing about it. My intent was to keep a record of recipes so that next year, as in the past, I wouldn’t have to scramble to come up with ideas each week.

I hoped writing it down would help me remember the creative uses for the tried and true vegetables like cucumber and zucchini, and those that stumped me, such as fennel and eggplant. That was the goal, but writing week after week has become more than just an account of what I cooked. Which leads me to the second ingredient.

One Part Memories and Reflections

I was born and raised in Wisconsin, only two hours from where I live now. While the land is slightly different, my CSA offers me many of the same vegetables I ate as a child. The tomatoes, squash and yes, even beets, are the foods that nurtured and sustained me, my family, and ancestors before them. Each time I grasp one, it’s as if someone from my past has handed it to me, whispering a story I have long known and that I can’t help but tell again.

For every post I write that talks strictly about a recipe, you’ll find one that celebrates the memory of a different time or place, or the cook who made it best. I think this is one of the best parts of eating and I’m glad to celebrate it.

One Part Creativity

Eating the same vegetables over and over again all summer long could get boring if I didn’t change things up a bit from week to week. While I enjoy the family favorites I can make by heart, I also love the unexpected new favorites I find along the way.

Trying new things with old favorites and seeing vegetables I don’t necessarily love in a new way nourishes my body and soul. Writing about it here is the way I share the meals I make even when we can’t gather around the same table to enjoy them.

One Part Practicality and Midwest Sensibility

On the other side of creativity lives practicality. This is the part of me that sees my CSA share as a business agreement. I signed up for it and I need to take it seriously. I must eat every vegetable I paid for and not let anything go to waste. Thankfully, this is also the part of me that knows in the Midwest summer does not last forever, and who is adept at finding ways to preserve the extra bounty of summer for the long winter months ahead.

When this part of me takes over, the recipes may not be as fun as when I’m feeling creative, but I’ll thank me when I take the first bite of a hot stew filled with summer-preserved tomatoes when my CSA share is just a memory.

So What Does it Make?

If I could really mix all these ingredients together, I’m not sure what it would taste like, although, for some reason macaroni and cheese with some fresh vegetables to make it a little healthier comes to mind. Whatever form you imagine these ingredients baking into, I hope it tastes familiar enough to feel a little comforting. I also hope it keeps you guessing too. In my mind, that’s the perfect recipe for the next food blog star.