Prologue to a Blog

A little over six weeks ago, sitting side by side in our minivan, my belly full-to-bloated from a fairly decent, but not mind-blowing, meal of Indian food, I said to my husband, “I’m thinking about never going out to eat again.” This is something I had said to him before, but without the force of a real decision behind it, so his response, a quick, acknowledging, “Hmm,” was almost exactly what I expected. “No, really,” I said, “I think I’m over this whole eating out thing.” “I know what you mean,” he said as he flipped the turn signal. And, although we didn’t commit to it, that was our life changing moment.

We’ve been together since 1997. Before we were even dating, we were best friends who ate nine dinners out of 10 together at one of two favorite diners. Our first unofficial date (it felt like a date, but we weren’t sure if we were out as friends or dates) was at a Chinese restaurant—I accidentally walked out with the mustard colored napkin, which is still saved in his dresser drawer along with the broken glass from our wedding. Our first official date was for Indian food. We studied for our senior year finals at a bar that served chicken wings, bacon and brie burgers, and had something just short of a million imported beers on tap.

In 13 years, we’ve had four houses and five apartments in nine cities (not counting a summer in Philadelphia with his parents) and I’ve never felt at home unless we were regulars at a local eatery. The ritual of sitting down at a restaurant, ordering, having someone else bring us drinks, indulging in food we didn’t have to think about, and talking for hours with a table between us has in some part defined, or at least punctuated much of our relationship. I can remember cities and town’s we’ve lived in by the restaurants, dishes, and faces of our favorite servers. Rochester was Mt. Hope Diner, the bomber special, and Barb the waitress (who ended our patronage when she asked us if she could borrow $800). Fall’s Church was Anthony’s, chicken parmesan subs, and Maria (who still remembered us five years later when we brought our daughter there as a newborn). Raleigh, NC was too short a stay to be a regular, and maybe that’s why I sometimes forget we lived there. Nashville was Le Peep, Brenda, and steak and eggs, with a side of fruit, no potatoes. We knew we were home in Herndon when we found Lucia’s, Roland, and the Club Med Sub.

For as long as we’ve been a couple, we have probably averaged about one meal out a day. We have, of course, gone through periods when eating out tapered off to once a week, but then there were also those gut-busting periods when we frequented restaurants two and three times a day. I don’t want to think about what this has cost us. I know for certain that one year the total was around $6000.00, but that was the year we cut back. In the interest of honesty, I will say that I am sure (though I have not gone over our records in that kind of detail) that at least a few other years have gone as high as $10,000 or $12,000. In perspective, that is (in any given year) one-third the price of my brand new mini-van, a single year's worth of my undergraduate student loans, or the full cost of the new hardwood floor I want to put in my house. And although it sounds like a ridiculous amount to spend dining, it’s not that hard if you spend around $30.00 a day, which—in cities like DC—is the low end of average for a two person meal.

Plainly, we are addicts.

The irony of the conversation in the minivan is we had no reason to believe we would finally make the attempt to quit eating out, much less quit cold turkey. We’d had the same conversation dozens, if not hundreds, of times over the past several years. Usually while on our way back from yet another restaurant meal. Sometimes the conversation started because food eaten out never tastes as good as what we get at home. Other times it was because we’d had terrible service. Many times it was because we were bloated and uncomfortable after having had a meal that was way too high in refined carbohydrates, refined sodium, refined sugar, and hormone full, grain fed meat.

Motivation to make the change was slow in coming. It was easy to say we weren’t addicted because we’d already taken many other steps to improve our health. We’d started ordering healthier at restaurants—more salad and veggies on the side, fewer potato chips and French fries. We’d both lost quite a bit of weight. I’d gone to therapy for an eating disorder, and had gotten seriously into exercise—even beginning at-home training courses to teach fitness classes. We had made regular evening walks part of our daily lives. We had reduced the level of processed food we ate (to things like pasta, crackers and cereal) and bought about 90% of the food we ate at home from a local, organic co-op and CSA. But while these things were wonderful advancements, our progress was stalling and it was becoming impossible to deny the very real damage eating out was having on our health and our lives. We were both beginning to loath the habit and really hated seeing our daughter starting to mimic us in her tastes. (She pointed at the pizza place and said, “Eat” when she was about 14 months old!) Not to mention that with a baby who alternately cried, threw food on the floor, and tried to scale the booths, eating out was becoming more of a pain in the ass than a pleasure.

At several moments in my life, I’ve realized that I have a strong (non-schizophrenic) inner voice, and when I have tuned in, really listened, and committed to it full force, it has lead me to meaningful, rewarding, and fulfilling life change. When I said I was done with eating out, this time there was force behind my suggestion. I felt inner resolve that is nothing like the feeling of holding yourself back and instead is a complete realignment of thought and action. I decided to just plan meals, and rather than forbidding myself to go out to eat, give myself a choice at each meal, with each bite. When we got home, I made a menu for the next week and we didn’t go out again for a full week. At the end of the week, we went out, ate very little and went home tired, bloated and unhappy. We ate at home for another full week. At the end of the second week, we tried a higher quality restaurant (to celebrate eating in all week) and felt like someone had let the plug out of our energy stores and our overall good moods took a hit. We have not been out to eat since.

In addition to not eating out, I have cleaned my pantry of any and all pre-processed and prepared foods. This includes pre-made flour—with the exception of rye, which I am keeping for sourdough starter until I can find a good supply of whole rye. Our pantry is 100% void of store-bought ketchup, mayo, pasta, crackers, soda, and bread. Brian surprised me with a countertop electric grain mill and I now mill most of our flour, with the goal of transitioning to milling it all over the next year.

I’ve become a hard-core traditional cook and have dedicated myself to completely eliminating pre-processed foods in our diet. I soak and cook our grains and legumes, and many of the things I make take days to finish—like whey preserved vegetables, overnight pancakes, and sourdough bread. I have big plans to grow most of our own vegetables next year, to learn to make traditional yogurts and cheeses, and to attempt to brew my own soft drinks and other beverages. I want to try many new-to-me traditional recipes, from cookbooks and even master family recipes lovingly prepared by my grandmother. My family will not just be along for the ride, but active participants. (Mia already likes to stand up at counter level and knead bread dough, and when I’m too busy, it’s Brian’s job to maintain the sourdough by “feeding the culture”.) I also plan to transition my kitchen to be more conducive to traditional cooking, including reducing the use of plastics and permanently retiring my microwave. All of these things will take time, thought, and step-by-step progress.

In the last six weeks, I’ve found that cooking this way has given me a lot to think about. Yes, I feel terrific physically, and I’ve lost some weight, but more importantly, life has taken on a rich, nourishing, aromatic, textural quality that it never had before. Traditional cooking has folded itself into and molded many of the other actions that I am taking for my physical, mental, emotional, and creative health. It has made a profound difference in how I feel about myself, my life, and my world.

This is a blog about where the decision to become a hard core traditional cook (and eater) is taking me and my family. The positive changes we see in our lives because of our journey and the bonding experience of meeting the challenge of living a somewhat unconventional life in mainstream, DC-suburbia. We have some big changes and challenges ahead of us, including balancing socializing at mealtimes, eating according to our convictions, and taking a restaurant free, processed-foods free vacation in August! I look forward to blogging about this journey and sharing my experiences with anyone who wants to read!