My Roots

Talk about a wild adventure!

I am so excited to get started on this wild whirlwind adventure of food blogging and sharing my life with whoever wants to read about it. One thing that I am very passionate about is food, so why not start with a food blog? When I was a senior in high school I wanted nothing more than to be able to go to culinary arts school but unfortunately there are no culinary arts schools with a basketball program, as you can guess … I was very excited about this class!

Things that are important to me:

1. I believe strongly in being healthy and fit; a large part of that is eating healthy and focusing your meal planning on nutritious meals. I cannot stand the negative stigma around the term “diet”; when I was playing basketball in college I was never NOT on a “diet”. At 6 feet and 140 pounds my “diet” wasn’t to starve myself, it was to eat enough healthy meals a day so that I could gain good weight to be turned into muscle. I was never “big” enough and that was frustrating. People who are constantly harassed for being skinny feel the same pains as people who are harassed for being obese. I can’t tell you how hard it was for me (this is where people are going to say something like “First World Problems”) but I had to eat just to eat. Not because I was hungry or because the food was appetizing, but because I had to have the calories, the protein, the iron, the carbohydrates, etc. As a result, when it comes to food, I think it is very important for individuals to see nutritionists; to know what foods are missing from their meals and learn how to incorporate them into their everyday meals.
   
2. A big problem with today’s meals are these cancerous little bugs called “time” and “money”. Those two little words control almost everything that we do every single day of our life and food suffers the most from this. As a college student, I have to be conscientious of my budget. I can’t purchase the prime cut for dinner every night because I quite simply can’t afford it making minimum wage working part time. I have to be able to know what is the best “bang for the buck”. Where I can find equally nutritious food at a lower impact to my wallet. Time is another thing, with all of the events that the everyday human is involved in, you have to be able to figure out the best way to get everyone involved. For families, kids love to cook. Get your kids involved as soon as possible! I still remember the first time that I made scrambled eggs with my mom, I was so excited about what I created – that’s where it all began! If you are the kind of mom or dad who never lets your children help cook you are doing them an injustice. What are they going to do when they go off to college? How are they going to fend for themselves when it comes time to live on their own? Have your kids help make holiday dishes, maybe they will get to be in charge of an appetizer or dessert? Cooking is a great way to bond with your family; it has been since the beginning of time and it always will be. All of my college student readers are like “Laaaame… I wish I had my parents to make me food, I just have fast food now.” DON’T! I repeat DON’T settle for fast food. You are better than that! Would you settle for a relationship that was anything except exceptional? Would you settle for a workout that was anything but a muscle fatiguing, cardio-bursting experience? Would you settle for a F on an assignment when you know you could have gotten at least a B? The answer is NO! (And if it isn’t you should probably look into rethinking your entire life….. your friends, family and counselors will help you with that, there is no shame.) My thoughts for college students is get a roommate or roommates. Buy your groceries in bulk together (look up extreme couponing) and then trade off cooking and cleaning. This saves you time – one can cook while the other does homework, have dinner, and then switch roles of homework and cleaning. Working together as a team will help you out in life; you can get further with a team than you ever could individually.
   
3. Food isn’t meant to be eaten alone. This is something that I firmly believe. I honestly would be happiest with a potluck every single night for dinner with all of my friends and/or family. Can you imagine all the fun to be had with that?! Everybody knows the difference between good food and exceptional food, but what makes a meal cross over the line to greatness? The stories that are made or told while you are cooking and/or eating. This is how “dives” get their success; little dingy restaurants that have good food and a unique experience when you go there. That is what keeps people wanting to come back for more! In college we used to do this “thing” called “Sunday Dinners” where eight of my friends and I would go all out in an elaborate home cooked dinner. We would split up the cost of the dinner and everyone would help cook it. Afterwards we would watch a movie or play a board game; this is what bonding is, this is what makes memories. Bonding and making memories doesn’t happen on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube, it happens with physically tangible things; take an effort to see people in person.
   
4. My family is very country and the country lifestyle is something that I am very proud of. It is something that I want to be a part of for the rest of my life and what I want my kids (if I ever have any) to be a part of as well. To know where your food comes from, to raise a calf all the way through to slaughter as a full blown 2500 pound steer. To know how much work goes into cleaning stalls to make a manure pile, to properly “cook” that manure down into a rich compost that you can then put on the garden. To work the garden in the hot sun to keep the weeds out, the crops watered, all just to spend long hours canning, freezing, drying and storing your food for winter. Now that, that is what living is. That is being in touch with your inner human soul and I wish that everyone got to have that point of view and that amount of respect for what we eat. Country living is all of that and so much more; it is about community potlucks with a live band and dancing, it is picnics in the field during harvest season, and it’s the finger-lickin’ barbecue you have after a long day of team penning cattle on horseback. I hope that with this blog I can share some of these aspects of my life with you; from the Rodeo Roads to the Recipes that I have created with my friends and family.
   

Things you should know:

1. I am kind of wild and spasmodic therefore I wont’ have a consistent day that I will post. In return, I do promise that you will hear from me a minimum of weekly, but, let’s be honest, I will probably be on here all of the time!
2. I am going to discuss a variety of things because they’re important to me. These items will include food recipes (of course!), personal stories that will usually correspond with recipes, my current adventures since I am always on the go, and about where our food comes from. Living in a farming community I want to make sure I can keep you up to date on everything that I am learning through school and my internship with Wilco Cooperative when it comes to agriculture and youth agriculture advocates (I am working with 4H and FFA high schoolers on a social media & blogging documentation).

I hope y’all like what you see! I am focusing this blog like I focus my life; being healthy with activity and nutrition, saving time and money, creating great memories and remembering the country roots that everyone holds!