It’s a well known fact by now that I like my chocolate.  I would be the last to say that I eat all healthful foods all the time.  But for all my indulgences, the reality is that I actually do buy and eat quite a lot of healthy food.  I prefer to keep our kitchen stocked with skim milk, whole wheat bread, cheese, yogurt, fruits, leaner meats, veggies and healthy cereals.  When I buy snacks and treats, I usually try to make sure that there is something redeeming about each item, or that at least they are made from reasonably healthy ingredients.

And, being the type A that I am, I’m a bit of an obsessive label reader.  Once I started reading I couldn’t stop, but some things sneak in unnoticed or I/someone else in the house can’t resist buying them (and I know you’ll be shocked but it’s not always me!)

So we’re going to start playing a little game I’ll call Mystery Food.  I’ll write out the ingredients of something I found in the house, and we’ll all raise our eyebrows/nod smugly/recoil in horror together.

Ready?

“Ingredients:  CRUST: Wheat flour, whole oats, sugar/glucose-fructose, whole wheat flour, vegetable oil, water, chicory root (inulin), honey, dextrose, milk ingredients, wheat bran, salt, cellulose, potassium bicarbonate, natural and artificial flavour, mono and diglycerides, propylene glycol mono fatty acid esters, soy lecithin, wheat gluten, corn starch, sodium stearoyl lactylate, carageenan, guar gum.  FILLING:  Sugar/glucose-fructose, glycerin, apple puree concentrate, strawberry puree concentrate, water, blueberry puree concentrate, natural and artificial flavour, sodium alginate, raspberry puree concentrate, modified corn starch, citric acid, malic acid, methylcellulose, calcium phosphate, colours.” 

Mmmm….good, right?  And the boys wonder why I keep “accidentally” forgetting to pick up more of these.  Sheesh.

And I have a question:  with 25 ingredients in the crust, and 15 in the filling…do we really need to also write “natural and artificial flavours”?  What, 40 ingredients weren’t enough, there are actually MORE substances needed to make this resemble a tasty snack?

What is the lure of a beautiful cookbook?  What is it exactly that draws me in, lifts my hand to the cover, begs me to open it to see inside?  I have a confession…I am a closet cookbook addict.  Addict, you say?  How can you be addicted to cookbooks?  They’re so practical, so useful! 

Yes.  Yes, they are.  Provided you actually use them.  But when you do like I do, stalk the pretty ones, drool over photos, purchase to add to the shelf of gorgeous potential – well, it gets a little sad.  Why do I keep buying them?

Case in point?  My latest indulgence, the eye-poppingly tantilizing David Rocco’s Dolce Vita:

I dare you to flip through this book without wanting to take it home, make it a cup of espresso, gaze at it lovingly and start talking about your future together.  People talk about food porn, and yes, okay, there is a certain lustful quality about the photos of delectable dishes, fresh ingredients and the lure of life in Italy.  But for me, it really is about dolce vita, translation:  ”the sweet life”.  This is the best definition I’ve ever come across to describe what I spend my days trying to create.  What I want most of all for myself, my family, my kids.

So does buying the cookbooks become part of the sweet life for me?  Is it the time I steal from the overflowing lists of things to do?  Time to sip a coffee, wander a bookstore, dream of days with nothing else to do but savour time, food, cooking, wine?  Yes, that counts.  For me, that is a moment of sweetness.

Having them in my kitchen, knowing that all this potential lies at my fingertips, that someday my life will slow down enough to create some of the beauty that lies between the covers of each volume.  Knowing that perhaps the quiet, sweet life I dream of lies around the corner of all this chaos…yes, that counts too. 

Dreaming of seeing the Italian countryside for myself someday, imagining the warmth of the sun, the smells of the markets, the taste of the wine counts also.

Back to real life.  For now, I’ll be happy with what I have.  A life that has much sweetness of its own, and a little time to gaze dreamily at this:

and this:

and this:

What are your favourite “dreamy” cookbooks?  Have you ever bought a gorgeous cookbook and not used it?  Are your cookbook purchases always practical?  

*Please note:  the photos above are my photos of this beautiful book open on my counter offering inspiration and temptation.  In no way do I mean to suggest that the actual photos are MY photography…the book lists Francesco Lastrucci as the photographer, as well as additional photography by Devon Tsz-Kin Hong and Rutendo Sabeta.  This is just to give you an impression of the beauty of this book.  In real life, the book is packed with photos like these, each more beautiful than the next…none of them taken by me.  ; )

The post that follows was inspired by a great contest idea from Mabel’s Labels.  They are searching for a new blogger to write for them for one year and attend the BlogHer ’10 conference in NYC!  Amusingly, my recent move brought sporadic internet access - I had a small taste of what they are suggesting.  Between that and the fact that the idea of writing for Mabel’s kind of gives me warm fuzzies all over (and it being NYC, people!)…well, here’s my response.

Write a post on your blog in response to the following hypothetical situation: Electrical storms are going to wipe out the Internet (perhaps forever). You have one day left to write about your passions: what do you want to say to the blogosphere in 300 words or less?

 ~~~

In Real Life

We have just moved back to my hometown, and I am happy.  The funny thing about upheaval is that renewal is never far behind.  This marks our second return to this city, and I hope we never leave.

I took a sentimental drive around the city last week and realized it represents much that I am passionate about.  It holds the life I want to live.  I want to watch my sweet children grow up in this home we have chosen.  I have a spot for a kitchen garden and a pretty room with a window waiting for the words I will write.  Friends will sit at my kitchen table knowing they will always find fresh coffee, understanding and good chocolate. 

I want my kids to know my Dad.  I want to take them to his cabin and watch them lose track of hours the way I once did.  We’ll roast marshmallows, and get sticky eating s’mores.

I want to take them to their Grandma’s house.  I want them to sit at my mother-in-law’s kitchen table, eating freshly baked buns the way all the other grandchildren have, beaming, jam on their chins, feeling warm and loved.

I want my kids to know family and old friends.  I want them to see our old houses.  And for all we have talked of Paris and London, first I want to take them to my favourite diner on Broadway and to the zoo. To the hotel downtown that looks like a castle and the double-decker bus that sells ice cream.

Oh, and my online friends?  They are real people.  We can write and call, and I’m already plotting my visits.

You see?  I’ll still be connecting.  And if you’ve been using the internet properly, so will you.

This is one of the most important, most difficult, most frustrating jobs I have ever held.  It asks for sacrifice, sleepless nights, bottomless pools of energy and unending patience.  It pushes me beyond what I think I can do, eats at me when I don’t measure up, and drives me crazier than I ever thought possible. 

This job is the ultimate commitment.  It is one of the hugest projects I ever dared to think I could take on.  This job pays me nothing, and in fact costs me thousands.  This job is…parenting.  Five years into this adventure – I am amazed.  Amazed at what the job has demanded and at what I have managed to give.  Astounded at how it has motivated me to push past barriers, past limitations, past personal shortcomings to do what needs to be done. 

I think most people would agree that raising kids is a huge undertaking.  No matter how you juggle career, childcare, home responsibilities…adding children adds mountains of work.  This isn’t to debate staying at home versus working outside the home.  Neither role is easy; neither role creates a better sleep at night because we have found “the secret”.  I don’t think the war out there that some people would have us imagine exists.  Most moms I know, myself included, are making up their own rules and using any combination we can come up with to balance feeding our souls, being there for our kids and paying the bills. 

But I’m curious about something.  Do we as a society put the value we should on taking years from traditional work roles to raise our kids?  Why, then, does it seem a lowly choice on the success ladder?  It seems as though we still define success as a dollar figure.  If you aren’t being paid for the work you do, if we can’t put it up on the wall and measure it against other jobs, we don’t know what to do with it.  If both parents work, there’s an admiration because we figure the household must be running that much better with a second income in the mix.

Imagine standing at a cocktail party and being introduced to a lawyer, a professor and a stay at home parent.  Is there anyone in the room who would assume that the stay at home parent is as smart and as capable as the others?  My guess is no.  The assumption for many is that staying at home to raise children or stepping off a traditional full time career path is a fallback, a plan B.  Is this where we place our kids in our priorities?  I chose to have children, I wanted these kids, and consider myself ridiculously blessed to have them.  This doesn’t feel like a fallback plan to me.

I think of all the parents I know who are raising kids full-time, part-time, those who are working from home or in any other way coming up with non-traditional forms of juggling it all and think…these are some of the smartest, most capable people I know.  I’m proud to be in their ranks, and I’ll stay here as long as needed for my soul and my kids, and as long as we’re still paying the bills.

This, too, is work.  Of that I have no doubt.

This piece was originally published by The Yummy Mummy Club, a great website created by Erica Ehm.  It’s a true resource for moms:  articles, blogs, contests and ways to connect with other yummy mummies! 

http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/labour_of_love_working_mom_jen_taylor