eclaire (what's in a) name?

hi everyone, i’m back from my trip to the midwest, and finally sitting down to post after a long week at work.  i had a fabulous time with my family in indiana and chicago – we had beautiful weather, and spent time celebrating my great uncle’s 99th birthday, looking at pictures with my great aunt (my grandmother’s older sister), walking around the campus of purdue, viewing exhbits at the chicago art institute, taking the “l” to wrigley field, and most importantly, getting to know our family in the midwest a lot better and learning about my norwegian heritage.  i discovered that my love for cooking and welcoming friends into my home is decidedly norweigian, and learned that norwegians get upset when people visit without calling, because they can’t prepare coffee and bake cookies before inviting guests into their homes.  to that end, when our friends came over this weekend, i decided i had to honor my heritage and make some cookies (albeit with them, not before they came over).

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a year ago, i posted a long and detailed explanation of march madness around here (waaay back before this was a food blog), and here we are a year later, actively caught up in the middle of it again.  before you get the wrong impression and think that we’re huge basketball fans, let me stop and clarify – march is the month of birth for practically everyone we know.  ok, that’s an exaggeration, but you get the idea.  every weekend this month has been full of celebrations (and desserts!), and to add some extra fun, we’re flying out to indiana to spend time with my great-uncle, who is turning 99 this week!

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i bet you’re wondering where the banana chocolate-chip bundt cake went, right?  honestly, it was hard to keep this dessert (or breakfast!) on the plate long enough to take a picture of it!

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mmmm…waffles!  it’s hard for me to begin writing, because i placed all of the pictures in my post first, and instead of writing text around them, i keep drooling over the memory of the taste of these waffles and wishing that i had some leftover, waiting around in my fridge to be eaten. alas, they are long gone, so i’ll try to move on.

ok, so first things first:  have you noticed that my fabulously talented husband and i did some work on my blog this weekend?  i updated the header, added a recipe index so you can easily find recipes in their appropriate meal section (breakfast, entree, etc), or search through categories for ideas of what to make (including vegan, garlic and onion free, and sugar free), and mike provided a bunch of technical expertise, plus tweaked text formatting, and added some ads to the sidebar.  thanks, mike!

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i’ve been thinking about food a lot this week.  as you might guess, this is not entirely unusual for me — as i am a major food lover and, obviously, blogger.  but this week, i’ve been thinking especially hard about food for a few reasons.  the first is that i began reading the book in defense of food, by michael pollan.  i labored my way through his first book, omnivore’s dilemma, perhaps because i am not an omnivore (there are long chapters about killing wild pigs and the beef industry that are slightly nauseating), or perhaps because it seemed too close to something i might have read in one of the many sociology classes i took in college – assigned but not thoroughly enjoyed reading.  the second book, however, is my first suggestion to you – i am tearing through it, and taking a lot of what he says to heart.  what’s really resonated for me is his discussion of the importance of real, whole foods (not the store) – avocado, bananas, carrots, etc – instead of eating filler foods chemically designed to taste good and supply nutrients deemed important by the fda (think most commercial breakfast cereals and packaged frozen dinners).  pollan questions whether food scientists have figured out what’s important for people to consume yet, and notes that food is about so much more than nutrients – it’s about the act of cooking with friends and family, interacting with them, savoring the taste of the food, and yes, there are nutrients in whole foods, but they are only part of the process. (thanks for hosting this “process” aka dinner this week, linn!)

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