We just had a very nice visit from Mom's cousin Lynn and her husband Jim, including the four of us going to OCNJ for a day on the beach with Sarah and John. Lynn commented that through their married life, she had made menus for their meals and had kept them all. At first, this might seem a little over the top, but as we thought about, Mom and I realized that what we have eaten at meals has changed dramatically over the years, to a great extent in response to the changes in our life: young and newly married, we ate one way; with six kids on the farm, we ate entirely differently; as we get older now, our meals are very different. We realized that it would be fascinating to have a daily log of what we ate, kind of "Our Life in Food", to look back on. It could provide a powerful window on our daily personal history and be a great memory aid, probably as good as the photos in the picture box. As an added benefit, it would remind us of favorite recipes that we used to use but have forgotten.
Well, we did not think to do when we were young, so we do not have a "food journal". But you who are young might make a habit of jotting down your meals each day, maybe with a brief comment on what is going in your day-to-day lives. I guarantee you, you will be glad to have it when you are 60.
Dad
I really like this idea, especially since so much of what we spend out time doing and thinking about is eating dinner, and it's the main thing we all do, always, as a family. And it couldn't have come at a better time! I needed a birthday present for Aleks, and this fit the bill. I went out today and got a journal from the bookstore and printed a recent picture of the four of us. So we officially started our journal on Aleks's 30th birthday. I made the first entry - Aleks's birthday dinner, celebrated with friends, one of whom had a birthday yesterday. We had a bunch of fancy steak from a local butcher, three cheese scalloped potatoes (cheddar, blue, and parmesan), roasted sweet potato/regular potatoes with oragano, salad, fresh bread, and three homemade sauces: salsa verde, crema y queso, and pesto. This was all accompanied by wine chosen by our friend Dusan, who knows enough about wine to have a rented storage locker to store his 200+ bottles. Finished it all off with chocolate chip cheesecake with minted mixed berries and a chocolate raspberry torte. Oh. My. Goodness. What a meal. It turns out that if you spend a couple hundred dollars on a dinner (it was fancy-fancy steak, and fancy-fancy wine), and you don't try too hard, and you don't mess it up, you can end up eating pretty well. Happy Aleks's birthday to all of us! It's going to be hard to beat our first entry in our food journal, but I would be we'll try over the years. Time to join the rest of the family and pass out. Thanks for the idea, Dad.
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