Howdy y'all

Happy holidays everyone!  Long time, no see.  I just got back from my longest break from work since I started, to Denver and New Orleans, and I am refreshed.  But after all the holiday decadence, I'm getting a head start on new year's restraint.  We all focus on Christmas as a celebration, "As if to say, 'Well done, everyone. . . we're halfway out of the dark.'"  But don't all the cookies and hams and treats get us ready for the other half, when the produce is hard and tasteless and imported, when the treadmill is a mental health necessity more than a piece of fitness equipment, and when the weather is miserable anyway so we might as well deserve some punishment? 

In that spirit of post-holiday frugality, I'm making an effort to grocery shop less and use the mountain of peppers in the freezer, the odd bits of cheese in the back of the fridge, and the random canned goods accumulated in the pantry, recipes be damned!  Things are about to get fancy* around here.  I might share some of the more spectacular failures or successes.  Also, I've just downloaded a pile of photos from my camera, so watch this space for updates on what's been going on the past couple of months. 

By the way, the farm I subscribed to last year isn't delivering to my area anymore.  So come spring, we will have a whole new adventure.

* Fancy - (adj).  the resulting mess when you just can't resist putting in one or two or five ingredients too many in a meal in an effort to use up whatever's in the fridge.