Tonight I watched the movie Julie & Julia. as someone who has had very little interest in cooking, the movie kind of made me want to start blogging again. Their joy of cooking also made me want to start cooking more, although I highly doubt my cooking habits will change in the near future. Maybe they will someday when I have a reason and purpose for cooking. Right now I struggle enough to just come up with something to eat, because there's not much motivation to cook for one. Most of the time I make simple sandwiches or whatever I may be hungry for at the time. Needless to say, it's not helping the waistline. I should probably work on that one...

Don't get me wrong, my mother is a great cook and she taught me the basics, but I really had no desire to do more. Growing up my interest lay in books rather than the kitchen. In spite of this, I'm great at baking chocolate chip cookies. My brother can attest to that fact. He even claims that my cookies are better than my mother's. Perhaps that's because that's all I knew how to make well. In high school I had the recipe memorized. I probably could recite it now if you asked for it.

Pennsylvania Dutch food has a lot of great food and that's part of the problem for me. I really need to learn how to cook more non-Pennsylvania Dutch food. Growing up, we had a meat dish, a vegetable, and a starch with every meal. (Don't take this the wrong way. I'm not blaming my family or culture. I'm just stating the facts.) It got me to think I had to all of those to have a complete meal. Now, I'm slowly realizing that the food game is more about portions, good taste, balance, and eating what's right for my body. I guess that realization is part of growing up, right?

This is part of the way I was conditioned to eat and thus my view of food is skewed. Eating was just to eat and be full. Grieving the loss of a father didn't help matters much. Oh did I also mention he might have had a stroke or heart attack that caused his accident...yea. I don't know if I really want to remember which one. Because of all this, eating has become just a habit. Eating shouldn't be a habit. It should be something you do because you are hungry and you need energy.

Being part of my PA Dutch family that has a history of diabetes and weight issues, I can't avoid the food issues forever and I don't intend to. Watching Julie & Julia made me realize something more important...I don't cook because I don't know where to start or how to tackle the issues mentioned, not because I don't know how to cook. It's overwhelming.

I really don't think my food issues was the point the movie wanted to make. No, it's point had more to do with finding yourself and not being afraid to step up and be a new you. Blogging can be about getting your feelings out there and about letting yourself be transparent. I've always been someone who has had the need to journal, to process what's battling around in the walls of my head. I started blogging in high school for this reason, first with Xanga, then with Blogspot. In college, I decided to have my own website and decided to take the personal part out of my website, keeping posts to my career related information. I soon lost the me in the equation. If I wanted to be another website with a list of technical information, I'd make a site just for that. This site was created for me to have a place to be me. So tonight, I'm taking back my blog. From now on, I'm going in a new direction, or maybe back to my original intent for a blog...to better find what's beneath the surface and find my own voice.