Cooking for Bimbos?! =]

I have yet to see Julie & Julia but I am in a very similar place, especially when it comes to rekindling that passion in the kitchen. My husband is the chef in our home and while I used to love playing around with a few favorite dishes (and was known for my quiche many moons ago) I was pushed out early in our marriage (ok, rightly so) but now I have the urge to get back in there and see what’s up...and I found this site that has me feeling that I can do it - it’s called CookingForBimbos.com! Immediately you find that it’s a site for those that want to cook for their friends but just don’t know what to make and how and here you find a number of recipes with instructions on how to make some impressive yet simple dishes. I like that it is run by one woman, Blakely and I love the fun and functional nature of her site and that it is unpretentious - no Bams! here. I have only reviewed the breakfasts to date and found that the “Egg Cuppies” to be an instant hit (especially since I’m in the low carb/no carb zone these days). I’ll include the recipe and a link to her website in The Kitchen - take a look!  I also love the idea of bringing back the apron. She offers a very cute yellow one (which of course makes our list) and a link to Flirty Aprons dot com. I recently helped my mom with some spring cleaning by going through some of the closets and storage areas and found one of her aprons that I remember her wearing back in the day.  I just couldn’t send it off to the church’s free shop and now I have it here in my kitchen so I better start cooking so I have a reason to wear it. I have so many memories of my mom and other mom’s at home in the kitchen. Seems like there was always a large, homemade cake in one of those glass covered cake plates on the kitchen counter and I can still see my mom standing over the counter with a recipe book open, a layer of flour dust everywhere and a wooden rolling pin in her hands. She used to make pies.  While my favorite was the traditional apple, made with fresh local New York State Granny Smith’s I believe, as an adult I came to appreciate her homemade Strawberry Rhubarb pies. Both the strawberries and rhubarb were from her garden and the crust was always from scratch (wasn’t it mom? I do remember seeing a Mrs Smiths crust in the freezer from time to time but for today we’ll say it was always home made, ok?) and I do remember it was very sweet so I’m sure it was piled with sugar to offset the sour nature of the rhubarb but those were the days when we didn’t count calories, or carbs. I remember a day in late summer when she made one of her Strawberry Rhubarb pies for my best friend’s dad who lived next door and was suffering with a brain tumor at a very young age. I can still see the late afternoon sun on the grass as we carried that pie across the back yard. And then, an intimate group of family & friends gathered nosily in a simple celebration around the large farm table in the room off of the kitchen in their old colonial home and we all shared and watched as pure joy came across her father’s face and a renewed glint that appeared in his deep blue eyes as he sat in his wheelchair and dove into a large piece of that Strawberry Rhubarb pie and smiled as the pie slowly let out her red glazing innards. A wonderful gift, food. Especially when it’s made with love and shared with family & friends.  Java!  - yf -