flour

somewhere along the course of this magnificent life i have lost my way in the kitchen...my compass won't stop spinning around and around......this has not always been the case..... i started out newly married lightyears ago clutching my little box of treasured recipes and each new meal that noah savored as a baby or toddler i crammed in the old fashioned floral box...i have a few worn out favorites that at one point i had memorized and brought out at the appropriate holiday just to hold the card or paper in my hand.... a piece of nostalgia each year....i even used to bake homemade pumpkin chocolate chip bread to bring to my mother in laws at thanksgiving...... i have sacred recipes for macaroni and cheese as far removed from kraft as possible.....i'm not sure if it was #3 or #4 but after having so many kids fabulous turned in to survival at the dinner table.... i can still serve a mean peanut butter and jelly with a side of seasonal fruit or well maybe just a fruit cup.... praise God for del monte...... anyways i'm not sure if it was the grits jess' aunt ordered the other night at the bbq joint or the massive references to fine italian dining in the book i just finished by john grisham "playing for pizza" "The housewives here spend the majority of their day planning around shopping for fresh foods. There is no Kroger mentality here." Umm... that's one place i'd starve in....but there was the mention of fabulous restaurants......that i could do..... and by the way i have no idea why i read that book...... well i do now i needed inspiration in a bad way..... but it was about american football in Italy?? yes i know....why??...anyways i've been pouring over my hefty collection of cook books...again why??? and i've been inspired of late to regain some composure in the kitchen.... after a trip to albertsons where i was consumed by the packaging of the baking isle products...100% whole wheat flour with a big knight on it King Arthur's Wheat Flour...i love advertising....naturally i bought the fancy wheat flour....by the way did anyone know that a big round carton of salt is only 70 cents! and i think that was pricey for salt because it was Mortons.....well i won't admit or rather embarrass myself as to the other things that weren't in my pantry for the last 11 weeks....instead i'll leave you with this..... tonight i baked banana chocolate chunk bread....mmmmmm.....wookie cookies from our Star Wars cookbook, courtesy of pottery barn kids...and a must have for little boys.... i guess i figured when i bought it my kids.... "could eat the pages if they got hungry"(4 jenn and mom)....and now the ultimate straw.......about two weeks ago my wonderful chefly talented mother was here and cooking us up some of her hot baked potato soup and she asks me to grab her the flour...."mom i don't have flour"...."then grab me the cornstarch".....ummm strike two.....i'm not a grocery store.....i had asked her earlier if she needed anything for the soup and she said no......so i remind her of this and she looks at me in her motherly loving critical way and says, "i realize that..... but who doesn't have flour?" ......well apparently me the disgrace to our southern family tradition whose roots trail back to the fine husband carved tables of georgia.....