For the new year

Hi! Happy New Year. I already said that, I know, the other day, but I mean it. And besides, saying it now, I hope, will make things feel a little less Monday.

It was nice, these past few weeks, to be on holiday. I went to Alex's family's, in Wellesley, and then up to my own parents' in Maine, and then came back home for champagne and singing and fireworks on New Year's Eve. We did a lot of cooking, and a lot of eating, and to balance all that out, a lot of walking and a very hard yoga video that my sister found on Netflix. I also got a new camera, a Canon Rebel XS with a EF 50mm f/1.8 lens. Eeek! Here it is saying hello, with a plate of the roasted butternut squash and farro salad we made yesterday.


You'll also find it over here, where it's part of a new project I'm starting for the new year. A digital camera means easier (way easier!) uploads, and I want to make the most of that. My mother and sister and I are always swapping recipes and cooking ideas via email, and for a while now, I've been brainstorming how to get that same sense of community and participation going online, here.

This Tumblr page has everything I've been looking for. I can post photos—big, plain, food photos with recipe links and local sourcing notes—and most importantly, you can too. You just have to scroll down to the bottom, click on submit, and upload a photo of whatever it is with local ingredients you've been cooking recently. You can add notes if you like—links to the recipe if it's online and a little something about where you found the ingredients, and then once I give the okay, it's up! I'm new to this, so we might have a few hiccups, but between all of us here I think we could bounce some pretty cool local food inspiration around.

I'll start. If you head on over, you'll see the farro salad picture up there along with notes about where the ingredients came from, and a link to the original recipe. I made a few changes—halved the farro and swapped out kalamata olives for toasted walnuts—but otherwise, the dish is pretty much the same.

So go ahead and check it out, and I can't wait to hear what you think. I'm not going anywhere, just to be clear—I'll still be here, but I'll also be there. I have a feeling it's just one of the good places 2011 is taking us. I hope to see you every step of the way—with more good food and good cheer.