Bye Bye Omaha (Chronicles)!

Last August, I moved to a new apartment. I moved for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I wasn’t too fond of the kitchen.

It wasn’t a bad kitchen, but it wasn’t especially friendly. It was off in its own part of the apartment, detached from all the other rooms with little space for people to mill about in it. As a girl who grew up in homes where the kitchen was always the heart of the house, this was not going to work for me.

So, I moved.

My new kitchen is much nicer. It has better appliances, more usable counter space, an island with outlets and more cupboard space than I’ve been able to fill so far. Definitely an upgrade.

I’m pretty well settled into the new kitchen now (don't ask about the rest of the apartment), and I think it’s time for some more change. Following the advice of some of my friends, I’m moving to a WordPress blog.

The Omaha Chronicles has been a great experiment (a blog with training wheels!) for me. And, despite what my extended absence might indicate, I like blogging, especially since it gives me another outlet to talk about food. But I’ve always had a nagging feeling that “Omaha Chronicles” wasn’t the right place for me. I chose the name with a different plan in mind and then food blogging came along and smacked me upside the back of my head.

Since some quirk of fate has come along and pointed me in a direction I didn’t expect, I’ve decided to go in that direction.

With that… I hope you’ll join me at my new blogging home.

The Kitchen Trials. Me vs. The Kitchen. With no supervision.

Don’t worry about the lack of supervision though.

I bought a fancy new fire extinguisher and replenished my first aid kit.

Poor little blog...

My poor little blog. It has a bad mommy. I've neglected it and shown it next to no love lately.

I promise to fix that in the very near future though.

After dealing with some personal stuff that's been stressing me out, I received some good news today. So... I'm feeling optimistic. Maybe that means my creative block will be lifted and I can get back to writing.

Just be warned, I might be taking y'all on a "detour" when I do get back to the insanity that is me... cooking... with no supervision... Hmm...

Note to self: Buy a fire extinguisher for the kitchen and new stuff for the first-aid kit.

As I recall all too vividly, the last time I got back into the whole cooking thing, I had a mini-kitchen fire and burned the living daylights out of myself.

Wish me luck!

#PlateSwap

For those of you not familiar with Twitter, the title of today's blog is what is affectionately known as a hashtag. It's a Twitter thing that helps Twitter users track a particular conversation or a trend. In this case, #PlateSwap helps me and other food bloggers chat about our Secret Santa project.

It's also why the first photo in this blog post features a nekkid, unplated plate. I wanted to be sure to show off my new #PlateSwap plate.

Thanks to the organizational skills of Cheryl Tan (aka @cheryltan88) and Ellise Pierce (aka @cowgirlchef) a few of us food blogger sorts exchanged plates with one another Secret Santa style. One of the goals was to add variety to the plates we use for our photos that accompany our blog posts.

In case you haven't noticed, in my case, this is a good thing. I'm very attached to my Correlleware plates. They're the gold-patterned dishes you see featured on my blog over and over and over again. These actually are fugitive dishes from my Dranny's set. During my next trip home, my goal is sneak some of my Mom's blue-patterned Correllware out in my luggage. (shh... don't tell her...)

I was the lucky recipient of the lovely plate seen here, which was sent to me by Paula Jones, author of bellalimento.com (aka @bellalimento). Paula deserves double bonus points in this adventure. She sent my #PlateSwap plate to me and it was returned to sender.

Doh!

Apparently, my move to the new apartment messed up the delivery one way or another. I suspect that in the haze of moving, I shared the old address, not the new one. Lucky for me, Paula was kind enough to re-send it via priority mail. Like I said, double bonus points for Paula.

Shipping misadventures aside, it was so exciting to receive this gift and to be a part of the #PlateSwap. It gave me a chance to "meet" some other food bloggers and it was an excellent excuse to rummage through a my favorite, nearby antique store so that I could share a fabulous find with my Secret Santa recipient, Cathy Shambley, aka ShowFoodChef.com and aka @ShowFoodChef.

As seen here, I've already started to put my #PlateSwap plate to work. This would be the results of an enchilada recipe I was experimenting with earlier this week. The recipe didn't quite turn out as I had hoped. Though I haven't quite determined what the "off" factor was for me. I guess that means I'll just have to try again.

You'll also see my #PlateSwap plate featured in the previous blog post. My Bacon Cheddar Scones are plated up on it. Those, I'm happy to say came out quite well. (phew!)

To Ellise and Cheryl, a special thank you for organizing the #PlateSwap. I loved the idea and can't wait to participate in future shenanigans with y'all. To Paula, thank you for the lovely plate.

Grandma's Grocery Store

I suspect that when my parents read this, they’re going to scold me. After all, I just moved into a new apartment and the vast majority of my stuff is still in boxes.

They might have point. After all, those boxes aren’t going to unpack themselves. However, I can only unpack just so many boxes before I go stark raving mad.

In any case, between the move and some recent work travel that's taken me to Minneapolis and Raleigh for days at a time, I haven’t had much time to make anything more complicated than a faux quesadilla cooked in the toaster oven. Heck, I almost didn’t have enough time to pack before the movers arrived.

Since I haven’t made a lick of progress toward accomplishing my goal of cooking from all of my cookbooks before the end of the year recently, I thought I’d take a moment to share with you one of the reasons why I’m so obsessed with all things food.

I’ll start by telling you that one of my early memories is of me toddling around my Grandma Mary Lou’s grocery store. This is a very, very vague memory from my childhood. I have no recollection of what I was doing exactly, but I’m willing to bet this “memory” is actually an amalgam of several memories of playing in the store or shopping for groceries with my mom or even just stopping by for a visit.

When I was little bit older, Grandma Mary Lou moved her store to a new location. The new store I remember vividly. I spent hours and hours there. I have so many good memories of the time I spent there and the freedom of being able to go into just about any room, aisle or cubby. Although Grandma Mary Lou and Cathy, the store’s butcher, were very serious about being careful around the butcher block area. There was no fooling around there.

I’m sure when I was little, I must have been underfoot a lot. I played silly pranks, played hide and seek with my brother in the back of the store (and the front, if I'm being honest), and would try to help stock shelves.

As I got older though, I did do some actual work around the store. I bagged groceries. Stocked shelves. Rang up customers. Helped make pizzas for the deli. Sorted coupons while watching Bob Barker on the “Price is Right.” (And no, I didn't purposely volunteer to sort coupons at the exact time that "Price is Right" came one. That was merely a coincidence. I swear. No, really, I promise. Pure coincidence.)

In return, Grandma Mary Lou paid me in comic books I read while sitting on bags of dog food, ice cream treats, candy and hugs. And then there was the end-of-summer, back-to-school shopping spree. My brand-spanking new Trapper Keeper and big, fancy box of Crayolas with a built-in sharpener were my pride and joy.

While some kids might have resented working in their family’s business, I never really thought twice about it. For me, it was a fun way to spend time with my grandma. There was also the side benefit of being able to talk and talk and talk with goodness only knows how many people. That was nice.

Plus, without even realizing it, it was a lesson in how important a grocery store can be to a community. The town in which Grandma Mary Lou lives isn’t that big and a lot of folks live out in the country on their farms and ranches. Coming into town to go grocery shopping was a big commitment. I know. When I was little, I lived with my family out on our farm, which was about 20 or 30 minutes outside of town. In an area like that, Grandma Mary Lou’s store was a place where people would run into one another, visit for a bit and share news and gossip.

Grandma Mary Lou sold the store quite some time ago. The first time I went to the store with her after the sale was weird. I wasn’t allowed to go in the back or behind the deli counter. I sure as heck couldn't get an ice cream out of the freezer for free either.

One thing hasn’t changed much though. Folks still have to go to the grocery store and you’re sure to run into folks you know while you’re there – even if you’re like me and you only get back to visit and share news and gossip just every once in a while.

(Note: I published this Aug. 30 originally, but edited it a bit on Sept. 1.)

Confessions of a Recipe Guinea Pig

As I may have mentioned one or two or a dozen times, I used to live in a B&B. This was a family business in Lubec, Maine, the easternmost town in the United States.

Now, first things first, don’t let those morons who live in Eastport, Maine, convince you that they live in the easternmost town or city or whatever it is they claim. They don’t. Oh. And those kids who went to Mt. Katadhin to see the first sunrise of 2000? Yeah. They didn’t see tiddlywinks because it was fogged in and overcast. Instead, Lubec saw the sunrise first. I watched it from brother’s bedroom window, in fact. After I’d been out for a good portion of the night celebrating. Oddly enough, there’s even photo evidence of my celebrating the incoming millennium. If I recall, correctly, my picture is right next to a picture of the Pope John Paul II in the New Year’s edition of the Bangor Daily News. I know. You’re jealous. I hope you can restrain yourself.

And that bit of digression has next to nothing to do with much of anything.

The point I was trying to make is that I used to live in a B&B. For those of you not so familiar with the lingo, that’s a Bed & Breakfast. In 1989, my family purchased a rather large house with loads of bedrooms and turned it into a B&B. After six months or so of renovations (it was supposed to be six weeks, but that's another story), we opened it just in time for the summer season of tourists that visit Lubec to go whale watching or to visit the easternmost point in the United States, which is at West Quoddy Head State Park (East Quoddy Head is on Campobello Island, which is in Canada – hence the reason a park named “West” is the easternmost point in the United States), and other touristy things.

Anyhow, again, I digress…

The reason my family’s ownership of a B&B matters to this blog is because of how it shaped my love of food and cooking. Not to mention my ability to talk to virtual strangers for hours at a time or to give you a tour of a building that would knock your socks off.

One of the distinguishing services we provided at my family’s B&B was a full, sit-down breakfast. No buffet. No stingy smorgasbord of muffins or cold cereals. Nope. Not at our B&B. My Mom and Dranny served guests a full, sit-down, bring-an-empty stomach, worth-getting-up-super-early-for breakfast.

As a kid living in a B&B, I had a lot of different jobs that varied as I got older. However, the one job that never changed much was my solemn duty of being a guinea pig for the recipes my Mom and Dranny tried. Let me tell you, that one was a tough job. I was “forced” to sit through many a test recipe to help determine if it was any good and if it was easy enough to make en masse for guests.

Yeah. Tough job. Especially when Mom and Dranny would test chocolate waffles with raspberry sauce, oatmeal pancakes with homemade apple syrup, egg blossoms and other assorted goodies.

I know. This time you're actually jealous. Please try to restrain yourselves though.

As we settled into the B&B routine and built a serious clientele of first-timers and return guests, my Mom and Dranny built up quite a collection of breakfast recipes. If I recall correctly, you could stay at our house for about a month and not have the same breakfast twice. And we had a few guests who would stay nearly that long thanks to a music camp for adults that set up shop in town.

That said, I’m not sure that we ever actually did that. If a guest was staying with us for that long, they typically wound up having a favorite breakfast or three that they would request and that we would make – assuming that it wasn’t an issue for another guest.

My Mom and Dranny don’t own the B&B any longer. They sold it a few years back and moved back to Texas. And let me tell you, while I loved being the breakfast guinea pig, I love celebrating winter holidays in Texas way more. I mean, c’mon. I get to wear flip flops on Christmas.

And, if I ask really nicely, Mom and Dranny even make up one of my favorite breakfasts from the B&B days.

Hmm… Speaking of…

Maybe I’ll make up some of those oatmeal pancakes or scrounge through my cookbooks for a new breakfast recipe or two. I’ll have to be my own guinea pig, but I can deal with that.

Brick Wall. Meet Forehead.

Some days, I have to wonder about just how bright I am.

I write my own blog. I write about food I make. I use cookbooks I bought or that were given to me. So, essentially, this all about me, me, me, me. (no comments from the peanut gallery!) When I think about it that way, I have to wonder why in the world have I been making it so darned hard to write about my last few cooking adventures?

Well, after whining about the lack of visits from my writing muse, she swung by and gave me a swift kick to the seat of my pants, told me to stop crying and reminded me that I make the rules around here.

Oh. Yeah. Duh.

Turns out that trying to write one blog entry about a weekend's worth of cooking adventures while visiting my parents was not my brightest idea. Far from it when you consider the fact that the three different meals didn't even necessarily have the same cookbook in common.

For the record, I've scrapped four versions of a post while trying to cram too much into it. I swear. You'd think I wasn't a professional in the communication field at that rate. How embarrassing.

Now that I'm past my own, self-imposed, dumb-as-all-get-out, brick wall writer's block, I feel like I can move on and write a few different posts about delicious goodies such as Apple-Pecan Pie, Cream of Chicken Soup, Cactus Jack Biscuits and Bacon Pineapple Muffins.

Exicting, huh?

Now, if you'll excuse for me for a bit, I have to go get some ice for my forehead. It feels like it's been bashed against a brick wall one or two times recently.

And you thought I was kidding, didn't you?

Below is a note I received from my Dranny after my last attempt at frying:

"Can you not find a meal without the frying bit??? Or at least use the much safer electric skillet to make things a little less dangerous for you anyhow. haha"

Just like I said. She's simultaneously horrified by my insistence on frying without parental supervision and dying of laughter.

Gotta love that about my family. =)

Transparency and Authenticity

As I become more familiar with the social media world, there are two words that I hear repeated time and again.

Transparency and authenticity.

The more time I spend engaging in various social media arenas and the more I hear about the importance of these two concepts within the social media world, the more I have thought about how they apply to me.

Clearly, they do.

I started this blog because “all the kewl kids are doing it,” but also because it’s a great way for me to share my love of cooking and cookbooks and whatnot with others in a way that allows them to engage on their own schedule. Otherwise, I fear that my friends, family and co-workers would have to listen to me talk about it all even more than they already do. And I would really like for them not to bludgeon me over the head to make me stop talking. (a thought that I’m sure has crossed someone’s mind at some point…)

In any case, because I believe in the importance of transparency and authenticity, I want to make sure I’m upfront with all of my readers.

First things first. This blog is my own personal space. I write it because I enjoy doing so. Period. Well, and to be perfectly honest, I like to talk. In case that wasn't already apparent.

All of my readers should also know that I work at ConAgra Foods where I’m part of the Corporate Communication team. As an employee of ConAgra Foods, I recognize the importance of using my company’s products whenever I can because brand loyalty matters.

I’m very lucky in the fact that I love so many of those products. For example, Ro*Tel. We make that. The fates surely smiled on us all when Ro*Tel was created. We also make Hunt’s Tomatoes, Rosarita’s, Gephardt Chili Powder, Peter Pan Peanut Butter, Ranch Style Beans, Luck’s Beans and many other products.

So when a recipe calls for an ingredient like canned tomatoes or peanut butter, I’m going to use the brand made by my company whenever possible.

However, in case you walk away thinking I’m loyal only to my company’s products, let me set the record straight.

I’m brand loyal to the core when it comes to other products too.

Just try to serve me a Pepsi after I’ve asked for a Coke. Not happening. In fact, I might kick you in the shins for insulting me in such a fashion. And if you think you could pry my Starbucks Venti Iced Coffee with two Splendas out of my hands, think again. And Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups… I love them. Love, love, love them. There is no substitute or comparable product in my opinion. And I’m pretty certain that some folks might have noticed my love of Bisquik. Jiffy Corn Bread ranks right up there too.

Anyhow… Enough about my love of various branded food products…

More to the point of this post is the fact that this is my attempt to be more transparent about what it is I do during the typical work day. This blog is my own space, but I would be stupid to claim or to believe that my 9-to-5 job doesn’t have an impact on me during non-work hours. I learn a lot about food, ingredients and cooking thanks to my job; and I’m proud of what I do.

However, that said, I want assure you that the opinions expressed within this blog are authentically my own and do not represent the opinion of my employer, ConAgra Foods. (i added that underlined bit of text on nov. 4, 2009, just to be clear on whose opinion are represented in this blog.) If I don’t believe it, I’m not writing it. Period. That is my promise to myself and to you.

I hope you’ll let me know if you have any questions or suggestions regarding how I can ensure the transparency and authenticity of The Omaha Chronicles.

Life Gets Busy, Do I Have to Give Up Cooking? Maybe.

So I’m a few weeks into this whole cooking challenge thing and realizing that it is *work*. Why did I not realize this earlier? Like before I got started with it? Granted, it is work with some particularly yummy benefits (if I do say so myself), but still…

There’s the obvious stuff. Like the cooking (duh...). The grocery shopping. And the blogging thing. Like I said obvious.

But then there’s the other stuff. Like cleaning.

For whatever reason, I cannot cook in a messy apartment. Yes. The entire apartment has to be clean before I feel like I can do something that, when all is said and done, makes one gawd-awful mess of my kitchen.

I’m not entirely certain why I feel the need to have a clean apartment before I start making a mess in the kitchen. Maybe it’s the fact that if I’m up to my elbows in goodness in only knows what in the kitchen, I need some respite from the mess.

And then, there’s my whole short attention span issue. It takes next to nothing to distract me. I’d like to say that it’s something sexier like multitasking, but it’s not multitasking when I forget to do whatever it was that I was going to do before I was distracted while on my way to do whatever it was I was going to do.

So this is a lead in to the explanation that, while I sometimes have no excuse for being behind on my self-set schedule of cooking and blogging other than my own short-attention span, I will have one during the next couple of weeks. The job that pays the bills (and that I enjoy, too) is sending me on the road for some conferences and the weekends will be full of other commitments that do not involve me cooking or baking for others.

Although… Now that I think about it, this might be an opportunity to more carefully plan out how it is, exactly, that I’m going to make sure I make it though all of my cookbooks by the end of the year as planned. Hmm…

Oh! What’s that? A silver lining? Seen through some rose-tinted glasses? Why yes. Yes, I believe that is the case.

What's With the Whole Cooking Thing, Anyhow?

While I’m waiting for dinner to slow cook itself into readiness, I figure I’ll do some writing.

Rather than write about what’s in the slow cooker (BBQ brisket), the oven (Baked Mexican Black Beans) or the fridge (cole slaw) for tonight’s dinner, I thought I’d tell you a bit about why it is that I’m so obsessed with cookbooks that I have 46+/- cookbooks and countless food magazines lying around while hardly, if at all, being used.

The easiest explanation is that it’s all the fault of my Mom and Dranny (she’s my maternal grandmother).

Yep. I’m going to lay this habit squarely at their feet. I don’t even feel the slightest twinge of guilt in blaming them for this. After all, next to their collection of cookbooks, mine is insignificant. Absolutely, utterly, 100 percent insignificant.

Of course, I don’t help them much since I’ve added more than a few cookbooks to their collection. That’s beside the point though.

Actually, in all seriousness, I really did learn my love of cookbooks from my Mom and Dranny. We would sit together and read through cookbooks quite a lot when I was growing up. We would pick out recipes to make or just drool over the pictures and recipes. Heck, we still do for that matter.

One cookbook in particular, “Texas: The Beautiful Cookbook,” which was a gift to my Dranny from one of our B&B guests, is still a favorite of mine. When I graduated from college and moved into my own place, it was one of the cookbooks that I wanted for myself. However, on a Hill staffer's paltry salary, paying $60 for a cookbook was more of an extravagance than I could justify at the time. I did buy it for myself several years ago when I found it on sale at Barnes & Noble. I still have it and will pull it out every once in a while and just flip through it. Gorgeous pictures, interesting recipes and some great info about how the recipes are tied to Texas.

In addition to blaming my Mom and Dranny, I have to give them credit too. When I decided to make something, they’d let me.

For example, the tuna noodle casserole that was one of the first dishes I insisted on making all by myself. I might have been in 4th grade, maybe 5th. It took me nigh on to forever to fix, but I did it. How my Mom and brother survived the wait without either bursting in to the kitchen to help me or to kill me is still a mystery to me.

Even better was the time I got it in to my head that making petit fours from scratch would be a good idea. We all laugh about that one - now - and use it as a cautionary tale for others. It seemed like so much fun and so simple. Ha! Cutting all those little cakes and glazing them and decorating them. Not even close to easy.

To this day, I can still smell the weird almond-flavored glaze and can only shudder in horror. And you know, now that I think about it, I’m not sure we even ate any of them. That’s how disgusted I was with them by the time I finally gave up on them.

This is only part of the reason I’m so obsessed with cookbooks in particular and food in general. The rest of the explanation will have to wait because dinner is just about ready.

Dinner time!!!!!! Yay!!!!

Hushpuppies!!!

If I'm going to meet the goals of my own personal cooking challenge, then I'm going to have to step up my game and get a-cookin'. To that end, I spent some quality time perusing my cookbooks for recipes that would make use of a few of the ingredients I have in the fridge already.

And then I stumbled acrossed it.

A recipe for Hushpuppies.

Hushpuppy memories flooded my brain.

I could practically taste the huspuppies.

I could hear the gerbils running on their wheels as they thought up a meal centered around hushpuppy yumminess.

To heck with making due with what's in the fridge! I could go grocery shopping.

And then I finished reading the recipe, which included this direction:

"...heat the oil over high heat ... fry in batches ... maintain the temperature of the oil between 350 and 375 degrees." (Source: "The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook")

My delight in finding this recipe evaporated in less time than it took me to look at my wrist and to remember the Natchitoches Incident.

So yeah. I won't be making those hushpuppies anytime too soon. I'll leave the frying of them until I get a new electric skillet for my birthday (hint, hint Mom!).

The Pink Elephant

If you've visited my site before or if you've heard me complaining in the last couple of weeks, then you know that I recently burned the holy living daylights out of myself. I find this somewhat amusing since the burns coincided with the first of my cooking challenges.

For the purposes of maybe putting the whole thing behind me (or at least trying to do so), I thought I would share with you the status update on the burns.

For one thing, I'm bandage free. A good thing since I had been losing more layers of skin than I actually have each time I ripped the bandages off to put more medicine on the burns.

Of the four burn marks, only two of them look like they'll be leaving noticeable marks. As for the other two, I'm very glad they're fading to barely discernible patches since they look like cigarette burns. Not a cute look.

On the other hand, if you play the cloud game with the worst of the burns (upper right corner), you can just make out a pink elephant if that pink elephant had been carved from wood by a crunchy, granola sort who thinks kids shouldn't have normal toys from PlaySkool.

So while these scars will likely prompt future questions along the lines of, "Honey child! WHAT did you DO to yourself?!" I can now say I'm seeing a pink elephant and folks will hopefully think I'm only a just little bit crazy rather than thinking that I might be just a little bit tipsy at an inappropriate hour of the day.

Somehow, I'm thinking that that might bit just a little bit of wishful thinking on my part. But, then again, maybe I'm just plain ol' crazy. We shall just have to wait and see, won't we?

A Simple Pleasure…

Last night, I was cooking dinner and realized that I had missed cooking.

I did not start my little cooking challenge two weeks ago because I missed cooking. I started it because it seemed like a cute idea. You know, “cook your way through your collection of cookbooks and blog about it” cute.

Well, maybe not so premeditated as that sounds, but you know what I mean. It just sounded fun in a cute way.

I didn’t expect to realize I had missed cooking and that it’s actually a suitable stress reliever for me. Being as short-attention spanned as I am and having the kind of job that requires that I switch gears with little to no warning, it’s nice to focus on something to the exclusion of all else.

And if you doubt that cooking takes focus, you’ve clearly never cooked with me.

For example, chopping vegetables. Yeah. Me plus sharp knives. Needless to say, I’m paying very close attention to the knife and veggies and ignoring other everything else while chopping them into little bits and pieces. I may have no apparent regard for avoiding burns based on the Natchitoches Incident, but I would like to keep my fingertips in place.

If you’re wondering how I could have come to a point in my life where I could miss cooking, I can sum it up pretty quickly. I’m single, work some oddball hours, hate doing dishes and had gotten in to the habit of not cooking while living in DC, where going out to dinner five to seven nights a week was the norm.

All things considered, cooking had become this exotic activity I did only when visiting my family or when I got a wild hair and decided to host a random dinner party.

So whatever else comes of my cooking challenge, it has reunited me with my joy of cooking (hello, pun intended!). And, as Martha Stewart might say, that is a good thing.

Now… If only someone else would do all of the freaking dishes and pots and pans. *sigh*