Back at a Beginning

When I first agreed to become a vegetarian, I felt lost. My carefully collected recipe repertoire and tested and refined ways of shopping and cooking went...POOF! As I crossed beef, chicken and pork off my menus and shopping lists, big holes appeared in the grocery cart, many meals and our nutrition. It has been a (mostly) fun-filled adventure filling in those holes. AND to my complete surprise and delight they're now full and overflowing with many extra, unexpected blessings, only made possible by stepping into the unknown of vegetarianism.

I have deep heart and mind memories of those early no-more-meat times four years ago and will draw from those imprinted cycles of frustration and breakthrough as I begin this new adventure of blogging. It occurs to me (as a runner) that if "blogging" is to "running" there should be a term to fill in the blank of "_______" is to "jogging" for newbies learning how to really blog. Whatever that blank is, that is what I am doing right now. What would that be? Plogging? Slugging? Blagging?

Many times my running has been replaced with jogging and even walking (due to injury and having babies) and each time the walking and jogging has given way to running again. So I take heart and have hope that some day my plogging or slugging will break into blogging! I have to start somewhere, so I'll start from where I am--here. It's a good place and I look forward to discovering where the plogging will take me!

Here I am

I once was a new vegetarian and plodded through the early stages of new ways of eating and cooking; today am a new blogger--a "plogger"I call myself. There's one place to start new things-- at a place called "here". That's where I am and where my food is when I transform it into snacks, breakfast, lunch or dinner--with mixed results. I am a CSA-member and a baby gardener and produce preserver. I've learned to and like to cook what's in season in my garden, in my CSA share or at the farmer's market. But it hasn't always been easy or fun. My most successful approach is to transform a recipe lifted from the internet or a cookbook into my transcendent vision for it to fit the ingredients I have at my disposal. Some times I create a new and amazing dish. Some times I create something new...and maybe "interesting".  Other times the vision just crashes and burns, (yes sometimes literally). I'll share some of my "food from here" in this space.  I hope my journey will encourage fun and learning in the 'here' of your life.  Enjoy!