The Thrifty Speaker

Some of you may know that I love to cook.  And I love to share what I know about food and cooking and thriftiness.  But I was as surprised as you probably all are when I discovered that a local not-for-profit wanted to HIRE me to give a series of three seminars angled at women with very small budgets, on how to prepare healthy and inexpensive foods for their families.  I was floored.  Someone wanted to pay me to talk to them about, um, food?

But that was nothing compared to what happened yesterday.  Yesterday I took Samuel and headed off to a big indoor garage sale being held and the Family Resource Centre in town.  I was hunting for winter boots and mittens that Sam couldn't figure out how to remove, and after finding both I saw one of the better-known townswomen coming towards me.  She 'had a proposition' for me, she said.  There was this committee in town, the Poverty Reduction Committee, made up of the heads of various non-profit boards and so forth, and they were very interested in what I did and would I prepare a short presentation for the board of directors?

About, um, food?

I was a little taken aback.  I mean, I'm not a nutritionist; I took Home Economics in school and made a pair of boxer shorts, a throw pillow and some stuffed potato skins and just passed the class.  I'm not a chef or even a professional amateur cook.  I'm a mom, and a wife, and sometimes I cook some terrible food...


July 30th freezer clean. Ah, I remember it well. And this is the result of all the 'little things' I couldn't bare to toss. Ingredients include a quarter cup of tomato juice, three babycubes full of frozen pureed green beans, two cups of curry sauce, handmade apple sausage and three kinds of frozen vegetables - just the last 'ends' of the bags. Amongst other things.

 But sometimes I don't.  Sometimes I cook quite well and surprise the pants off myself...


Easy Thai-inspired Seafood Soup.  My own 'recipe'.

And there are times my children are fed very poorly...

And then there are times when I pull out all of the stops and go health crazy...


My alternative to Jello.  Grape juice prepared from organic, local grapes and mixed with gelatin powder and a bit of sugar.

 So, in short, I'm a normal person.  And I'm a little, wee bit nervous about the expectations of these people.  I really hope that they also fall within the 'normal' category.  David assures me that everything will be just fine.  Which is so like him, really, he doesn't have to cook!