Allow me to be brutal for a second and tell you right away what you will never read on my blog; stories about how much my parents loved each other. This is probably why I sulked for four days after I read Lorna’s post about her parents, On Food, Love, and Family.

Every time I read about someone else’s normal family and their love for one another I have tears in my eyes. I cannot help but feel joy (for them) mixed with pain. And a pinch of jealousy.

So I felt somewhat gloomy-doomy for a few days. By the fourth day I got it!

A loving relationship between parents is one of the greatest gifts that the parents can give to their children. And while I can do nothing about the past and choices I didn’t make, I sure can focus on the present, and the future, and what I can do. And I look at what I do have.

Suburban Cowboy mentioned to me the other day that we’ve been together for nearly 10 years! He’s been thinking about it (Ohhhh….). It’s been wonderful so far.

We constantly work on our relationship and it gets better and better every day. I won’t tell you that we don’t have our moments, our arguments, conflicts, and misunderstandings. We do. Any couple does, right?! And still, as a friend once described us, we operate together like a “well-oiled machine”. Now I must add a and an exclamation mark to that!

So I don’t have love stories of my parents to share, but I hope that Suburban Cowboy and me will provide enough good material for our children to talk about one day… That thought made me happy.

That’s us back in 2001 while on a trip to Cyprus.

2002, Columbia River, Oregon

Washington

(No, we don’t own a boat. Don’t get all excited.)

In the meantime, while we create our legacy, allow me to share a few links to beautiful and inspiring stories about parents, and love, and food:

Elise from Simply Recipes adores her parents. She has a lot of recipes that start with “Mom’s…” and “Dad’s…” and that says a lot.

Tara Weaver from Tea & Cookies always weaves the complexity of relationships into her posts. I love that about her blog. You should read her post about her mother, A Very Special Day.

Sweet Jessie from Cakespy wrote Sugar mama: An ode to the sweetest mom ever. The title itself made me go “Ohhhhhh…”, but the post is also beautiful and you should read it.

I can’t forget Dianne from White on Rice post from way back in February 2009 about Vietnamese Braised Pork & eggs in caramel – Thit Heo Kho Trung Flashbacks from my mom’s kitchen. It also brought tears to my eyes.

Molly from Orangette once tweeted to me that her parents are “very easy to love”. It shocked me that someone can declare so simply this sort of declaration. I’ll never forget that. I loved her post “A first-rate mess” about her mother the “champion crab-leg sucker”.

Hmm, so we have 2 pairs of parents and 4 mothers… Well, mothers are a special case; they always win.

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I have also tweeted (@1familyfood) and Facebook-ed asking for more links to posts of this sort and received a few links:

Adrienne from A Big Mouthful wrote about how she learned to make broccoli kugel with her mom.

Olga from Mango & Tomato collaborated with her dad to make Baked Trout with Vegetables 

Roz from Roz’s Scrumptious Recipes loves her mother-in-law and made tortilla soup inspired by her

Lara wrote her “multi-generational households” in her post Orzo Primavera.

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L, I love you.

Happy 1st decade anniversary!

We look so serious above… but mostly we’re not…

Have you seen Suburban Cowboy do the hoola hoop dance?

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I really did not plan to post a gift guide. But, as I was finalizing my own gift list, the who, the what, the when, and the why, I started thinking about books. How could I not? I love books. I’m always happy to receive a book as a gift. (Or something for the kitchen, but the kitchen is almost completely covered with everything I… need?)

As much as I love buying cookbooks, this year I did not buy as many as in previous years. After more than 130 cookbooks – I stopped counting – I changed direction a bit and focused more on other food-related books and mostly on food memoirs. My favorites are the food memoirs. Each one has a unique voice and story to tell, and recipes to share. I love recipes that are connected to stories. Anyone can write a recipe but not too many people can attach a great story to a good recipe.

I want to share with you some of my favorite books from 2009. If you’re a little behind on your holiday shopping, like me, then I’d like to help a little. I’m gonna share my list as my holiday gift to you.

I really don’t want to analyze or review why and what I liked about these books. How very conveniently, almost all these authors blog as well! So, either you’ll have to trust my judgment on this one or go visit their blogs to get a sample, a taste, of their writing. Ahhh, go there anyway, I won’t take it personally. No, I won’t see it as a sign of not trusting me. No Siree, I won’t. Go, have fun, enjoy it. I just hope that in a small way I might have helped you out a bit just in case that you were stuck with the holiday shopping. And don’t forget to treat yourself to a book too. It’s the holiday! But who needs an excuse to buy a book, right?!

I would love to hear about the great books you read this year! Please tell me and share with others in the comment section below, OK? Thanks!!!

Here’s my list:

“A Homemade Life” by Molly Weizenberg, the author of Orangette, one of my favorite blogs: http://orangette.blogspot.com/. It reads like poetry.

“The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry” by Kathleen Flinn, blog: http://kathleenflinn.blogspot.com/. A romantic story of studying at Le Cordon Blue, cooking and living in Paris.

“Julie and Julia” by Julie Powell, blog http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html. She’s got a mouth! Honest and direct, she doesn’t try to make things pretty. I love it!

“Hungry Monkey” by Matthew Amster-Burton, blog: http://www.rootsandgrubs.com/. I am starting to believe he’s got a point and I’m trying to adopt his approach with my kids and their picky eating. The book also made me laugh a lot. But mostly one night when I was haunted by guilt feeling that I am not a good enough mom.

“The Sweet Life in Paris” by David Lebovitz, blog: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/. Funny stories and observations about life in Paris from the eyes of an American who happens to be a former pastry chef in one of the best restaurants in the US.

“Not Becoming My Mother” by Ruth Reichl. Ah, I have discussed this book in length. It started here.

One of the handful of cookbooks I bought this year – the one who made it into my cookbooks shelf – is “The Steamy Kitchen cookbook” by Jayden Hair, blog: http://steamykitchen.com/. It’s easy Asian cooking with which I didn’t have much experience but I could not resist making these sweet and sour pork meatballs! And the rest is history.

Next I’m going to read “Fat of the Land” by Langdon Cook. His blog and book made me very curious as he is a forager! As in hiking in the Northwest mountains, forests, and shores searching for food from the wild, wild mushrooms, clams, geoducks and more. How cool is that? Visit his blog: http://fat-of-the-land.blogspot.com/.

Also I can’t wait to dive into this book, “Best food writing 2009”, a collection of the best… well, the title says it all.

And, coming out in February, I cannot wait to read “The Butcher and The Vegetarian” by Tara Austen Weaver. I love Tea’s blog: http://teaandcookies.blogspot.com/. It’s real life, with the whole spectrum of emotions, good and the bad, happy and sad. It makes me feel good and normal and sane.

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Don’t forget Menu For Hope!!!

Donate = buy tickets to bid on really awesome food prizes! It’s a great way to help others. As little as $10 helps a lot and then you have a chance to win something delicious and exciting. Click here for details.

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Happy Holiday!

Nurit

Every now and then I run into a blog post with helpful tips abut food photography. Unfortunately, I don’t always have time to read them, so I thought it’ll be a good idea to compile them in one place and when I have a moment There will be this one place where I can quickly get to these resources. I hope you will enjoy it too.

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By the way, if you would like to guest post about your food photography experience or tips, contact me. You don’t have to be an expert and you might even think that you suck! That’s OK, the whole point is to learn what works and what doesn’t.

The posts are aimed to beginner level, so send me an e-mail to nurit AT family friendly food DOT com, Thanks!

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Also, if you ran into a good post about this topic, let me know by adding a comment below and I will add it to the links’ list. Let’s show these people who are generous and share their knowledge with others some link love. Thanks!

Food photography:

A newly discovered blog, Simone’s Junglefrog cooking has a category devoted to Photography

White on rice couple – photography tips

Still life with…

Wrightfood blog, here and here

Simply recipes, here

David Lebovitz, here

Brown eyed baker, Food Photography 101: The Basics

Learn food photography and food styling blog, click here

General digital photography:

The pioneer woman – photography

Digital Photography Tips for Beginners

Add your link or a link to a post you found in the comments section below. I’ll get it up here.

I’m not writing about Weight Loss Weekly today since I’m going to post about the Hunger Action Week in the next 5 days. But do go and visit Bernie, Sunny, and Joie de vivre who are discussing this question: How do your family and friends support you or hinder you in your weight loss efforts? Do they adapt easily to your changing habits and help you along, or do they confront your new habits with skepticism?

And now to the challenge.

I am feeling a bit nervous about this challenge. It is mainly the thought that to me it’s a 5 days experience but there are other people who face this challenge every day. While I usually shop at my favorite fancy food store, they have to rely on food stamps for much longer periods of time. It’s an everyday reality for them.

I don’t know anyone personally who relies on food stamps to eat – besides my grandmas who raised families during the previous depression years – and I don’t know how they do it. I’ve never been too smart or careful about spending money on food. Ever since I started buying my own groceries out of my own money, I always spent too much on food. I never planned a food budget. Not even when I was a student and working multiple jobs to support myself. I know I’m very lucky. In trying to prepare for next week’s hunger challenge, I realized I must know how much certain ingredients cost and I must plan my expenses.

We have decided to take this challenge as a family, meaning my husband and our two kids are participating as well. Our budget is $22 per day * 5 days = $110 for the 5 days’ challenge. We usually eat at home and I usually cook from scratch. It saves money, I believe, compared to buying pre-cooked, pre-packaged, or highly processed food, and it is much healthier and tastier. For example, if it costs $6-$7 to buy a take-out chicken teriyaki with rice and lettuce salad (and it’s a lot of food, enough for 2 people), I can buy for the same amount of money free-range, maybe even organic, chicken legs and make a home-made cooked meal with a side dish of rice and fresh salad enough for 4 servings. So that’s a good start. (And less Styrofoam.)

The food

Our meals in general, are simple and usually look something like this:

Breakfast is tea,coffee, milk for kids, bread, butter, jam, cheese, yogurt, fruit, maybe 1 egg is involved too.

Lunch: Baby eats lunch and snacks at day care. My son’s school lunch is food from home, either leftovers from dinner or a sandwich and fruit. My lunch is the same. My husband usually eats at his work’s cafeteria. The cost is $4-$6 per lunch and he doesn’t enjoy the food so much so for the challenge I will cook our lunches and he will take food from home. (He would have been very happy to take lunch from home every day, I’m sure.)

Snacks between lunch and dinner can be a fruit, yogurt, crackers, milk/smoothie.

Dinner: See recipe page for dinner ideas.

The plan

I am planning to use pantry items that I already have such as sugar, coffee, tea, olive oil, spices, but I will deduct them from the $110 budget. I estimate the cost of using those to be $2 per day + I add baby’s food at day care (I think it’s around $2 per day). Let’s say it’s a total of $20 for 5 days. That leaves me with $90 for the groceries. It doesn’t sound like much, does it?!

I have to cook 5 lunches and 5 dinners and I’ll be using recipes I have already posted on the blog. Yes, the kids will probably be happier to eat more pasta, pizza, and hotdogs, but I would like to see if what we normally eat would work on a budget.

Estimated cost of 5 dinners for the family

#1 Chicken liver – $3 and Yellow rice – $1

#2 Sweet and Smoky pork chops – $6 (4 servings) and Mashed yams $4

#3-4 Roasted Lemony Chicken Thighs – $8 (8 servings), leftover sides, and Roasted vegetables, like carrots, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts – $5 (4-6 servings)

#5 Upgraded pizza – $6 or Ravioli – $6 and Top Secret Orange Marmalade Salad – $4

Anything that’s left – $0

Estimated cost of 5 lunches for 2 adults

#1-3 French Onion Quiche – $10 (8-10 servings) and Simple salad $10 (6 servings)

#4-5 Black-Bean Burgers $9 (4 servings)

#4-5 Leftovers – $0

That’s $66 for lunch and dinner. So I have $24 left for breakfast and snacks. 

This morning my husband and son took leftovers from last night’s dinner to work and school, Mac and cheese and roasted chicken. The cost for both is $3 which I will take it off of my groceries budget.

… I have no idea how many hours it took me just to plan, estimate, and calculate all these things. Probably 2-3 hours. I could have done so many other things during that time.

OK, I’m going to do the grocery shopping now. I’ll post later about how I did.

Leave a comment, I’d like to know what you think.

Thanks, Nurit

Other food bloggers taking the challenge:

All You Can Eat, Cook & Eat, Eat All About It, Eric Rivera’s Cooking Blog, Favorite Freezer Foods, Foodista, Julie Jams, Live To Eat, Mirch Masala, Musings on the Path to Frugality, NOMalicious, Savory Sweet Life, Self Rising Flour, The Curious Domestic, The Gastro Gnome, What’s For Dinner

I follow many food blogs and plenty of times I find gorgeous food with beautiful photos that I really really want to try and make at home.
For this week I picked a few recipes, the Husband went grocery shopping with the Kiddies, and we’re going to have…

Organic Carrot Risotto from Foodie Tots

Roasted Cauliflower and Red Pepper Farro Salad from Closet Cooking. I never ate or cooked Farro. This will be interesting and new as well as Mushroom and Thyme Farro Salad.

I love clementine, so I plan to try the Clementine-Cranberry Bread from The Kitchen Sink

15-Minute Fried Herbed Chicken from NY Times Mark Bittman looks delicious.

Now I only need to find a new and exciting recipe for a cake for the weekend. Any suggestions?