"Let Food be thy Medicine and Medicine be thy Food” Hippocrates

Seems my life revolves around food and I'm not really talking about the act of eating it, although that's a big part of it. I'm either doing any number of these at any given time of the day, everyday, which includes but is not limited to: planning it, cooking it, cleaning up from it, talking about it, watching it, shopping for it, putting it away, savoring it, storing it, getting someone to eat it, washing up for it, budgeting for it, driving to it, starting clubs to support it, fundraising with it, working with it, thinking about it, celebrating it, making a hobby out of it, wishing for it, getting sick from it, staying away from it, dieting because of it, exercising to have more of it and of course eating it. Sometimes it makes me crazy! Oh believe me, I find enjoyment with most of those. I think that food brings people together. It's just that a few of them are just plain exhausting! Today is so far an exhausting food day. I mean it's not that I even did a lot of cooking (that was yesterday). Today I did a lot of cleaning up food. Everything I gave baby Neil to eat, ended up on the floor. Fun times!

So while we are on the subject...Let's talk about the word "Foodie." epicure: a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment (especially good food and drink).
I believe that makes me one except I also think that the word can be thought of as being snooty or uppity at which I am not but it is those types of foodie's that give the term a bad rap. Let me tell you a story. This is one of my favorite memories about food and my dad when I was little. I was about maybe 4 till around 6 or 7 yrs. old, we lived in Parma, OH and my dad worked the 3rd shift at General Motors. On Friday nights I would be allowed to stay up until my dad got home from work at about 11:30-midnight. I thought it was the best because every Friday he would bring home a foot long Mr. Hero Hamburger and we would share it as a midnight "snack." Oh sure my mom and brother were probably there too but in my memory, it was a special thing just between my dad and I. I couldn't wait until Friday came around and I would look forward to it every week. My parents also called me the French Fry Queen when I was little because I loved McDonalds french fries. Now does that give me warped thoughts on food? No, not at all, it gave me some great memories. I am just sad that those days seem to be gone in this world of everyone giving their two cents worth on what's healthy and what's not and eat this not that and being made to feel like you are a piece of crap mother if you let your kids have fast food. I think that's rubbish and I'm not gonna stand for it! If I wanna post a facebook post that says I love me some Mr. Hero, by golly, I'm gonna do it because it's true, I do! Do I enjoy a Big Mac every now and then, you betcha!

Ok, now I'm gonna tell you another story and then you'll see where I'm going with all of this... When I was 7 yrs old my family moved to Middleburg Hts., OH where I grew up on 3 1/2 acres of land with the metroparks in my backyard. So what did my parents do with all that land? They built a huge garden. Actually I take that back, they built a huge vegetable garden, a nice size herb garden, a rose garden, an English flower garden and  multiple other flower gardens to landscape the property. Then one year my mom mentioned to her sister that someday she wanted to raise chickens. So that following Mothers Day, my uncle brought over 40 pullets (teenage chickens) and a rooster we named Hugh Heffner. For awhile they lived in huge connecting cardboard boxes in our garage until my dad could build a barn, which he did. After that, we were known as the people who had a farm in the suburbs. I was known as "Chicken Trapp" in school and when I would tell people what we had at my house the first question I would get was, "You live where?" So my memories of growing up was of eating fresh eggs with yolks so golden that eating a store bought egg was bland. We also had fresh fruits and veggies in spring, summer and fall and my mom's canned ones in winter. My mom would always make homemade bread, we never had store bought. When the chickens got older, my dad would butcher them and we would eat the meat. We also had rabbits, birds, a dog and occasionally I would bring home random wild animals until I could find them homes. A couple times a year a friend of my dad's from work would have to fly on business to Maine, so we would have him fly us home fresh lobsters that we would pick up from Burke Lakefront Airport and eat that night. It was a real treat! Oh and on top of all this my dad is a huge fisherman so it was a usual thing for him to limit out on Lake Michigan or Lake Erie perch or stealhead or walleye at which he would clean and my mom fry up immediately and we ate them like potato chips.

So you see, I know what good healthy food is and I feel very blessed to have been brought up with such experiences. Life is about enjoying every teeny tiny bit of what God blessed you with. Don't deprive yourself of anything because it will only make you want it more which will give you warped thoughts on food. However, if you want to make a lifelong personal choice to...not to eat fish because it's "smelly", only eat meat on Wednesday's, be on a fruit only diet, only eat green food, never eat standing up, only eat when the sun's shining or whatever it may be, hey it's cool with me. I'm not going to judge you, all I ask of you is not judge me for how I choose to raise my family on food!