Cook Books + Therapy

hi there! we had a great weekend and i can't believe it's monday already! this is a super busy week for me with all day meetings and i kinda wish it was thursday already because i'm anticipating some late nights.

so anyway, i got a couple of cook books for xmas (that i asked for ;)  keepers and dinner: a love story (a wonderful blog too).

now that the boys are a little older (all of 2 and 21 days!), they can entertain themselves a bit more and really play together which is awesome not only because it's awesome to watch them being best friends but also i can do a few things on my own!! say what?! :) one thing that i'm hoping to do more of is cook. my mom set a really high bar in my family - we had dinner together every single night during the week and it was always, always a home-cooked meal. i have failed miserably to follow in her footsteps. (and now that i have my own children, i feel bad for all of the times that i complained about having curry chicken again or pork chops marengo tango. i was the pickiest of picky eaters though i can't say much has changed!).

i started reading dinner: a love story (the book - it reads like a book instead of a traditional cookbook) and i immediately felt like jenny, the author, was talking directly to me. making meals for the boys can be terrifying to me. i have felt paralyzed at times and then guilty for not making something they like or that's made from scratch (i'm looking at you trader joe's frozen meatballs). for whatever reason, this part of motherhood did not come naturally to me. but in just a few pages, she relieved me of this guilty feeling and whacked me over the head with a good dose of common sense: my children are TWO. set your expectations low. really low. and don't even think about dinner as a family until three. a weight lifted - no flew - off my shoulders. i could almost physically feel it. therapy, right there in a cookbook. who knew?! so anyway, highly recommend it to anyone looking to make a change in their cooking lives.

p.s. i recently also picked up the smitten kitchen cookbook recommended by jenny from dals because i'll pretty much do whatever she says when it comes to the kitchen. my husband took one look at the cover of the smitten kitchen and said "whatever that is, i want to eat it now." so i'm excited to start trying some new recipes out from that one too.