A New Direction

Sometimes you can feel change coming, sometimes not, sometimes it hits you broadside.  It doesn't matter that it comes, it matters what you do with it and how you respond. 

I could feel that I was becoming less and less interested in spending all of my blog focus on Starbucks.  don't get me wrong, I still love Starbucks and intend to visit as many Starbucks stores as I can.  I hope to write a blog here and there about them.  I want Starbucks to be around for many years to come.  I loved meeting people and listening in on others' conversations.  I will still attempt to visit a Starbucks weekly so that I can find interesting things to write about in my soldier's letters.

But now, along with Sis, one of my very dear friends, I've decided to blog about another American business,  Moosewood.  Many many years ago, I read about this wonderful vegetarian restaurant in up-state New York.  Over the years, I talked about how someday I wanted to visit this restaurant.

I have toyed with idea of becoming a vegetarian since 1977 and have even gone totally meatless for months at a time over the years.  Once I married in 1981, I realized that not everyone, including my husband, was "enlightened" to the meatless life.  I struggled to incorporate a meatless day into our week.  Unfortunately for me, my very first meatless night I made lentil burgers.  I ruined the recipe and we ended up at Steak n' Shake eating a full fat burger and those wonderful long stringy fries. I wonder if they still make those?  Anyway, that night has given us a good laugh over the years, especially my husband.  He always seems to love reminding me of that night.  No matter, I persevered, even if at a slower and more careful rate.

And what do you know?  Christmas 1992,  I received the Mollie Katzen MOOSEWOOD COOKBOOK 15 Years from none other than my meat lover husband.

 I was thrilled.  I still have fun looking back over my recipe notes.  One of my favorites is written on the page for Swiss Cheese and Mushroom Quiche, "Mike says, 'Okay.  Better than regular quiche.'"  When I read that, I crack a smile.  What could he have meant by "better than regular quiche"?  What could be better than a flaky pie crust filled with a mixture of eggs, cream, cheese and meat or eggs, cream, cheese, meat and a vegetable?  To me if the Moosewood quiche is better than regular quiche than it is pretty darn good!  But then, Mike is a man of the '70s, you know those "real men who don't eat quiche".    I have used this cookbook for almost 20 years now.  And for a couple of my dishes namely cornbread and eggplant parmesan this is the one and only source.

In 2010 while visiting Sis, we both realized that we shared a love of the Moosewood cookbooks.  I left her home in envy, she had a full collection and I had my one and only.  Since then we have touched on the cooking subject several times.  This year after Mary sent me a package with several interesting spice packets, we decided to "cook"  together, she in Kentucky and me in Ohio.  Our first dish was a lemon curry chicken and our second was a Greek spice mix marinated tofu.  We shared the process by one of us selecting a recipe and deciding on day for the cooking.  We text our progress to each other and then share pictures of our finished product.  We decided last week that we should focus on the Moosewood recipes.  So for fun, I said that I would blog about our cooking sessions. 

So here we go!

Websites:
http://www.moosewoodcooks.com/