The Letter I Wrote

Hi friends,

I recently had this idea for a little cooking challenge for my family. As I gave it more thought, I thought it might be interesting to invite others to join in on it, and see if we could all be a bit of a support for one another. I am also well aware that some of you may already do this in your lives, and so this may not be a challenge to you at all. If that's the case, and you would still like to participate, I think it can better the rest of us, and hopefully you can get something out of it, too.

Okay, I'll get on with it!

I have to admit that even though I cooked professionally before having a child, preparing a home cooked meal 7 days a week is really challenging. I would say that I am doing better, but it can still be improved. So, I challenge my family (uh, that's just David and I) to eat in for dinner at home for 30 days straight. What that means is no calling up Pagliacci Pizza at 5pm for delivery, no take out Thai food, no Fuji Sushi in the I.D., and no whole roasted chicken from QFC. Yes, I'm admitting to some my fall backs when I just can't seem to get dinner on the table...or don't want to. It also means better meal planning between David and I, and hopefully, better budgeting in the end. What I do want to add is that it is tough to make a meal from scratch each night. Some days, the challenge isn't what to make, it's whether or not a certain toddler of mine will let me make it. So, there needs to be room for what I call "emergency food." That's frozen stuff, packaged ravioli, even boxed mac n cheese.

I was also thinking that I would start a blog for this challenge so that all who are interested in participating can also post to the blog. You can post about your meal planning, or what staples you are stocking up on in advance, recipes you have tried, or even when you have a slip up and missed a day. Nobody will get mad at you if you missed a day, but maybe you can make it up at the end by adding another day.

Anyway, if you are interested in doing this with us, shoot me a reply, and I'll put all those who are interested on the list of posters for the blog. We plan to start our challenge in October. We'll be gone the first week of October, so we won't actually start until the second week. You are welcome to start on Oct. 1st. Good luck, and please let me know if you have any other thoughts to add to the challenge.

Cheers & happy eating,
The Hunts