August 9, 2007: a reflection of pain

It's been one year and about 11 hours since my Dad passed away. So much has changed in the past year for me. I made the life-changing decision to get out of the Air Force and move to my dream city of Chicago. While my dream city has not been meeting expectations, I know that it will once I've given myself enough time to grieve the loss of one life and the beginnings of another one.

Food Blog: Butternut Squash Risotto

Risotto is one of my favorite comfort foods, and something I am naturally drawn towards whenever I see it appear on a menu.  Likewise, butternut squash is in my top three favorite fall vegetables, so I thought it might be a perfect union if I combined them both.  I did look for several recipes, but ended up doing a hybrid and working on my own.  

Garlicky Smashed Potatoes

We need to lighten things up a bit around here, so I'm going to throw in a food post that will hopefully make everyone who tries it as happy as it made us here. We love potatoes in this household, and I enjoy trying out new recipes whenever possible. I bought a 5 pound bag of red potatoes recently, and after looking at something similar from Ree Drummond (also known as The Pioneer Woman), I decided to give it a try. 

An update on Mama P

Where to begin...

Well, if you're here after seeing my recent Facebook post - and I'd figure you would be, since I haven't updated this as frequently as I've promised - then you know that this blog has shifted from a running-cooking-running-eating type of deal to something a bit more serious.  I've decided to keep friends and family informed about my Mom's cancer progress via this blog, since there are a lot of details and frankly, I didn't want to put up a 7,000 character status when I wanted/needed to share information.

Gouda bacon mac n' cheese, and an update

I have to give props to my friend Colly for calling me out on not posting here, even though I post snippets of food porn onto my Facebook feed with some regularity. Last night, in celebration of Mama P's safe arrival and general happiness at the end of the week, I decided to make honey garlic chicken, Gouda bacon mac n' cheese, kale chips, and a pear-strawberry cobbler.  Save for the kale chips, the original version of all of these recipes can be found on my Pinterest page.

Roasted Eggplant Parmesan Stacks

So it's been a long time since I posted a recipe...I posted the following photo onto Facebook and found that a few folks wanted to know how to make this, so I decided a blog would be a quick and easy way to put it out there :) 

Little miracles everywhere...

So it's not a cooking post, but this story illustrates how something good can come out of something bad.

I've alluded to Mary's birth and subsequent health issues on this blog, albeit vaguely. Although I'm not typing the whole story out right now, I'll go into a little more detail. I mentioned previously that I've had HELLP syndrome. HELLP stands for hemolysis (breakdown/death of red blood cells), elevated liver enzymes (causing inflammation of the liver), and low platelets (those nifty little cells that help your blood clot). You can Google it for some interesting details in how it can manifest in pregnant women. It's extremely rare to have it in the severe form I had it - generally speaking, the cure for it is delivery of the baby. My HELLP was so rapid and severe in its onset - and its rarity - that my doctors didn't realize it for what it was until it was almost too late. Were it not for my OB, who had seen it before just once in her career, neither Mary or I would have likely survived. I like to refer to her as my guardian angel.