After trips to tropical islands (Katie) and the suburbs of Cincy, OH (me), we are once against nestled in cozily in our over-heated, now-crowded-with-Christmas-presents Greenpoint home. And we intend to hibernate. I mean, we are, in fact, at this moment, hibernating. I don’t think Katie has left the house in 48 hours; I did go out yesterday for sushi and a new Internet router. It’s cold.

But what all of this means is that we’re going to have lots of stir-craziness-inspired home projects to relay here.

Plans?

Well, the hallway herb garden has mostly died during my nearly 3 weeks of travel. But I’ve got spinach, arugula & sorrell seeds to start, in addition to more rosemary, oregano and thyme, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to do so (I’m currently loving this vertical shoe-organizer vegetable garden idea, but there’s no good place to configured it in my house).

The holidays (and family dinners) made it somewhat difficult to stick to any sort of dietary plan (though a couple “hanky pankies” on Christmas day withstanding, I avoided meat, at least, and taught my parents a thing or two about butternut squash and sweet potatoes and salmon), but now I’m ready to recommit to eating well. Katie & I aren’t sure we want to attempt any raw foods business anymore. I mean, I’m mixed. I’m somewhat sold on the ideology of raw, but I think more of a “whole” foods diet is the way to go at the moment, especially in these winter months, when all I want to eat is mushrooms and squash, and all my boyfriend wants to cook is big pots of soup.

I got an amazing cookbook from my mom and dad for Christmas – Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source with More Than 200 Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You – and I’m excited to cook just about everything in it. I also got a book called Steam It!: For Meals That Taste the Way Nature Intended. I think steamed food may be the closest I get to raw as long as this cold continues.

Oh, books!, books abound here, and I’ve got a few non-cookbooks that might be of interest here, also:  Wendell Berry’s Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food, which I first read about on the Atlantic Food Channel but now seems to be cropping up everywhere (the year of the poet farmer?), and My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm, which I’m reviewing for work.  So, more on both of those in the weeks to come.

There are also ballet classes to take, and languages to learn, and trips to California and Chile to plan; cobra pate to make, olive tapenade to perfect, and composting to conquer; Greenpoint foodies to charm, music videos to shoot, and chapbooks and novellas to pen. Yes, as you can clearly see, excitement abounds here. I hope you are similarly nestled in some where until about March. Or that at least your mama gave you a warm coat and a good pair of mittens for Christmas. Happy twenty-ten, darlings! If case you’re not aware, this is the year for fame, fortune, Greenpoint Rising, and overalls.

Related posts:

1. Welcome!
2. Backstory
3. Happy Thanksgiving!
4. Tapenade!
5. Homemade Muesli