Rambling & NYC

Hi,
the post below was written in October 2011. I have been through quite a transformation since but I figured I'd be true to myself and post my first post before I bring things up to date....

Welcome to my Food Blog and my first posting! Oh scary stuff. Although it's an appropriate time of year for all that scary stuff! Starting a food blog has been something I've wanted to do for a very long time, but work, fear, lack of confidence, and probably a little laziness have all conspired to stop me. Now, work is no longer an issue, (that's a post all of it's own!) the fear has gone too, (what use is that to me anyway?), the confidence thing I'm working on and the laziness....well I started back in the gym last week and I'm actually surprised I have any power left in my arms to be even be able to type this!
Here's the thing I've struggled with aswell. Because I am over weight....verging on very unhealthy and because I love food soo much I've had a hard time reconciling with the fact that not only do I want to get fit, healthy and trim I also want to blog about lots of yummy food and visits to farmers markets and all that good stuff. You see I LOVE food, you may have gotten that from the blog title? But it's more than that. It's what makes me really, truly, stupidly, unabashedly - Happy. Dreaming up recipes, cooking, baking, serving, seeing the smiles on friends and families faces as they savour the flavours. I get so much pleasure from all those elements of it, but there's still more. There's the hours I could spend, and sometimes do in really good food stores, in farmers markets, on websites for food related items, and the kitchen gadgets shops, ohh don't get me started on those. I was in New York recently (I LOVE NYC), and had the utter complete unadulterated pleasure of spending an afternoon browsing in Chelsea Market. www.chelseamarket.com For those of you who have not made it there yet, you must go. It's where they have the Food Network Studios so it's like the holy grail for food lovers. As soon as I passed over the threashold I felt like I do every Christmas Morning (yes still!). My friends all trained their eyes on me to see my expression, I could feel them bore into me, I didn't care. I stood for a moment, and then I inhailed. OMG, it was wonderful. The waft of the warm, huge, Chocolate Chip Cookies from THE Jacques Torres chocolates http://www.mrchocolate.com/ mingling with the freshly made Crepes from Bar Suzette Creperie. (http://chelseamarket.com/barsuzette/) The buzz, the excitment, it very nearly consumed me. Anyway, I'm going off on one, I'll do a separate post on NYC for those who want to read about it. You get that I'm crazy about all things food.
If I was writing this even last week I would have been saying to you now, so you can see my dilemma can't you? But you see, there is no dilemma anymore. I figured it out all on my own, aren't I super intelligent?!
I don't have to compromise my love of food in order to get and stay slim. There are lots of people out there who love food, who work with it everyday and keep themselves fit and healthy. What I realised was that for a very long time, in fact probably forever, I haven't really enjoyed my food, like really savoured each mouthful. I'm a binge eater, an emotional eater, a 'I'll eat it if it's in the house' kind of eater. Even though I claim to love food, I haven't really been true to that moniker by my actions. And you know what they say about actions v words etc. So, there it is. There's no dilemma.
I'm going to truly LOVE my food from now on. More importantly (well marginally) I'm going to truly LOVE myself and I will bring my love of food and life together and make one happy healthy marraige. I have dozens of cook books that I delve in and out of. From now on I will pick a recipe, make it, thoroughly enjoy eating it and I may even take a few pictures & post the recipe so you can see what it is and I'll keep you posted on how it works out for me. Wish me luck. Till next time.
Jill
P.S Tonight it's going to be Shepherds Pie with roast root vegetables from the lovely Nuremore Hotel and Country Club garnered from the fabulous www.zestcookbook.ie which was published in aid of the Irish Hospice Foundation in 2009.