January Thaw

It seemed like a normal winter around here for a while. Lots of snow, followed by a thaw.

But the "thaw" was unusually warm, and all of the snow (except for the big piles left by the plows) went away. Temps were in the 60's yesterday. It was comfortable to go out without a coat -- I even had a window open for a bit -- and the birds were singing like it was springtime.

Which it wasn't, of course. Overnight, the cold front blew through and the temperature dropped by 30 degrees. It's still dropping.  Back to the illusion of normalcy, for now.

I thought it might be fun during the winter months for our congregation to hold a series of Little Dinners. We did these all the time when we lived in Erie (many years ago) and it's a great opportunity for small groups (6-8 people) who normally only see one another at church to meet at someone's home for a potluck style dinner and get to know one another a little better over good food and conversation. Well, enough people agreed it was a good idea and I am now in the process of setting these up.  The first dinners will be on the 26th. We'll be hosting one here, which may require some rearranging of the furniture, but we're looking forward to it. Our church attendance is up this year, and we've welcomed several new members and regular visitors, so there are many more good conversations to be had!

The seed and flower catalogs are arriving, which always gets me excited. I haven't sat down to draw up my new garden plans yet (there's still plenty of time!), but I have lots of new material to get my imagination working productively.  I read earlier in the week that, properly motivated, Americans grew 40% of their own food in their backyard "victory gardens" during WWII. So why on earth do we accept produce out of season from other continents, picked too soon because it has to be shipped thousands of miles, and it ends up tasting like crap? Are humans getting dumber as time goes on? There are some difficulties with our less than year-old food buying club (an effort to buy more regionally produced, and better quality, foods at bulk prices) because of the need for people to change and coordinate their buying habits. I really hope that members will hang in there because the food really is better and it makes more sense to plan and shop this way. For those of you who live in and around Jamestown and who still are not aware, this is Furniture City Foods I am talking about. C'mon and get on board! Everybody wins when we work together.

My adventures in cooking with new recipes will continue this week.  I have learned that rolled oats and shredded zucchini are good additions to meatloaf, and I've discovered several winning recipes for quinoa-stuffed peppers. (I actually did a mash-up of three different recipes.) I'm looking for more recipes with quinoa and some new ones for lentils because I have a lot of both on hand.