Flavors 518

I'm here to say that real life is not as beautiful as Tastespotting . How does that make us all feel? Inferior? Pathetic? Like we don't plan out our meals well enough or make them look beautiful enough? I didn't really want to write a "How Emily Really Eats" post for the From Scratch Club series . Why not, you ask? Because it might be like "I had a hard boiled egg, a Special K Protein shake, and then my husband prepared a beautiful roast chicken dinner, and we had a fabulous Pinot Gris from the Finger Lakes". There are things to be embarrassed about, like eating lunch at your desk . There is even a chick lit novel called "Sad Desk Salad" . This is why I love so much the tumblr Sad Desk Lunch . The reason it is so much fun is because it is honest. I love it. It makes me feel great in a way that Pinterest can make me feel bad (if you haven't read it, check out this great New York Times article on the topic ).

It took me a long to get to a place where I have a balanced relationship with food. I previously wrote about the pressures on brides to lose weight . I also wrote about thinspiration on Pinterest . I've read quotes by the singer Adele where she says she has seen where obsessions with weight go, and she doesn't want to do that to herself mentally. So I'm against that - I'm against obsession, diet pills, girls I knew who would lick Doritos and throw them away on the side of the couch so their boyfriends would think they were actually eating chips. I'm in favor of vegetables and making some effort to get some form of exercise. Of course you want to feel good about yourself and fit in your clothes, but other than that I think worrying too much about weight can ruin your life pretty easily. If you won't even eat butter on Christmas or let your kids put white flour in a Father's Day cake, I don't think you are living life to the fullest. Life is too short fo...

 This weekend my friend Celia and I went to the Big Summer Potluck in Bucks County, PA. We had a fabulous time, and she even won a KitchenAid standing mixer! There were several great presentations, and lots of amazing food. I helped ladle the juices onto the pig that was roasting for dinner. Here is the pig being carried to be set up for serving. And it on the table for carving.  The result: Celia made me, herself, Joy the Baker , and Shutterbean "Boom Boom Pow" t-shirts. Its s reference from a podcast . Totally fabulous. I love it so much! Apparently, you can do anything with freezer paper. My takeaway thoughts from the event: It seemed wrong that we were out in this incredibly beautiful setting with fabulous food and smart, interesting people, and we were complaining about Pinterest and unattainable ideals that are marketed to us on the internet. The internet isn't that serious. It is the typing television. Think back to the original AO...

Now, I realize despite Pinterest 's total addictive quality to a certain type of woman that not everyone knows what it is. The Brooklyn Museum Shop is on there, and when I tried explaining to our shop manager what the site could do and why she should get on there too, it didn't go very well. "Strangers can discover a cake I made last July and 300 people read the post in one afternoon!" Now that is power. But I read on Jezebel yesterday that not all the Pinterest power is being used for good. This is not surprising since I saw pro-anorexia videos on YouTube years ago. Maybe Instagram is next . What is interesting is all the backlash on the site itself. Here are some good ones . And a story on Business Insider . Another story on Jezebel . A selection of some of the pins . And finally, Huffington Post . More of the anti-pins here . My favorite was this one: Now, you can't police the internet. I wrote about pressures to lose weight while I was planning my...

Today I went to see Joy the Baker at her book signing at Brooklyn Kitchen in Greenpoint. It was ridiculously fun. Check us out: Check out her adorable message signed inside my book: I love her. I was on the fence whether to go or not, and I happened to watch the video on her about page again. I have got to say - the story about her dad and the pie crust gets me every time! Also "I hope you like it - I made it for you!" Ahhh! I just wanted to go so bad! I met some elderly women on the train who couldn't understand why I was on a trip by myself ( perhaps that is a generational difference ) and also could not understand me traveling a few hours to see a food blogger. "She has a blog." Then they said "Is she on PBS?" "No." "The Food Network?" "No, there is a blog." "So this is her first book?" "Yes" "But it is all desserts!" "That's not true, there are a couple of smoothies....

I've been talking a bit about the Pioneer Woman lately. I met her in NYC and I made her doughnuts . Here is a really interesting article about her from the New York Times magazine .  I love all this talk of "Real Housewives" and peeling open the plastic on the tapioca pudding as a huge contrast to Ree Drummond's life: " It takes only a few minutes of voyeuristically perusing Drummond’s pastoral pleasuredome, with its gorgeous photographs of Drummond cooking dinner for her rugged cowboy husband or home-schooling her four towheaded children, before you realize that you are a failure. Gazing at photos of Drummond’s kids riding their horses under a cloud-dappled Maxfield Parrish sky, you can see that, in comparison, you fail your brood every day. Because as you grumble and boil mac and cheese from a box and your kids beg to watch the latest Katy Perry video on your laptop, this woman fries chicken and teaches her children algebra and shakes her luscious ...

It's getting a little warmer round here and it makes me feel like looking forward to the next few months. I've got some fun ideas and then our 1 year wedding anniversary. Yay! Next week I'm going to the book signing for The Pioneer Woman in NYC. Sure, she is goofy sometimes and wants to put in way too much butter, but there is something I like about her - relatability, unparelled success out of just typing about food from her living room computer, those mushrooms ?  March 31st Joy the Baker is going to be in NYC also for a cookbook signing .  Do you read her blog? Emma Stone does! I bought her cookbook last night and fell in love with her all over again. You really feel like she is right there with you. I think there is some balance in blogging - you want to disclose enough about yourself that there is something there to relate to, but not too much that it would be awkward if readers were to meet you in person. It is not a journal, right? Somehow, she really strike...

As part of Tuesdays with Dorie using the book Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan , I made the white loaves recipe. You can check out the recipe here . I enjoyed this recipe and was able to use some of my dough agitation techniques I learned from my King Arthur Flour pizza making class . Dealing with the sticky dough made me appreciate the bench scraper we had at the class ( like this one ), and I headed out to Different Drummer's Kitchen afterwards to pick up one for future bread making projects. I love my Roll'pat for projects like this, as it helps to keep the counter clean, and it is really quick and easy to rinse off afterward. First I gathered up the dough by mixing together warm water and yeast and then adding flour, sugar, and salt. You beat in some butter, and then put it in a bowl to rise. After an hour (ah - breadlove!): Then take that out and divide it in two on the counter. Then we are patting them out, rolling them up, and sealing the seam...

Now for a break from our regularly scheduled programming I'd like to take some time to defend my girl Taylor Swift's good name. For fun, go take a listen to this interview here . Check out what our friend Amanda has to say about it . Here is Irin Carmon, the woman who was on the radio with Caitlin Flanagan, and what she has to say about it . Now, it is clear to me that there are many, many things wrong with Flanagan's arguments. She clearly doesn't pay much attention to facts. But two things that she did hold up to support her arguments were Taylor Swift and Disney Princess movies. I might argue that those princess movies don't even send very constructive messages to young girls. Belle in "Beauty and the Beast" has to leave her community and family to be locked in a cell by a beast that growls at her, and then in the end when she decides to stay there because he turns better looking, and we are all supposed to cheer. I feel a lot of my friends pick ...