O, Hai!

Another blog...fabulous!

Actually, I hope it will be a kind of a little fabulous.  And if you don't like it, I probably will, so it's already a win.

My job starts in May 2011, a year after leaving my full-time job in cancer research to finish a nursing degree.  I've had a lot of time to spend at home, and certainly more time to pay attention to cooking and frugal grocery shopping than when I was working a full-time demanding job and going to school at night.  To live comfortably on no income, I've had to make some compromises - eating out less-to-never and making a dollar do some interesting acrobatics at the checkout line.  Being gluten free adds an extra complicating factor, since the special flours and products can be, well, not budget-friendly.

The weird thing is, instead of regarding it as some terrible, painful chore, I've actually found myself enjoying the challenge of cooking all the time, gluten free, on a budget.  It's helped me deal with the sometimes intense anxiety of unemployment, i.e., I may not have a job, but I can make these awesome cupcakes!!  I also made quite an awesome discovery that a gluten free lifestyle CAN be practical, affordable, and universally appealing without spending your days eating stale, discounted rice cakes.  In fact, I found that spending less money on food led to a more interesting and certainly healthier diet that doesn't even have to be terribly time-consuming once you find your groove.  If going gluten free has taught me anything, it's that things from nature are what we probably should eat, and for everything else, we need to learn to critically read labels.

I cook or bake nearly every single day of my life, and frequently take point-and-shoot pictures of it, and sometimes even post them to Facebook.  I spend an unnamed amount of time curating my recipe binder and shopping at the six grocery stores and five fruit stands within walking distance of my apartment.  I don't have cable, so my cooking-show-watching is minimal, but occasionally I am granted an episode of Jacques or Lidia on PBS that inspires me to make something new.  So why not post it for your maybe-enjoyment?

It would be silly to say what exactly you can expect from this blog, but I intend to post recipes with plenty of novice photos (both my own recipes and others' I am test-driving), tips, product reviews, and probably other material with thin connections to cooking or baking.

If you have ideas, feedback, or questions, leave a comment and I'll always do my best to respond.

Otherwise...we're off!