Musings

When I meet someone who’s just poked through Big Girls, Small Kitchen for the first time, especially if we meet around 11am or maybe 4:30pm, he or she often says to me, “I’m so hungry now!” and then I say, “that’s my intention.”

It’s cute enough repartee, but in fact the conversation masks something I’m not entirely comfortable with: tempting you. The best way I’ve found to stay healthy in a world full of temptations is to eat three meals a day that are relatively straightforward, meaning tasty but not indulgent (you know, lots of vegetables, whole grains and good bread, some meat and fish, some cheese, enough fat to make it all delicious: more or less what mom would tell you to eat). That means I try to keep treats (sugary things, gooey things, fried things, and expensive things) in my life, but as treats. Still, I recognize that it doesn’t always seem that way if I’ve just posted about mango sorbet, followed by rainbow cake, followed by filet mignon.

That tendency to prioritize our treats in our Internet food photos has created something of an imbalance, according to Bolthouse Farms, whose whimsical, yet serious Food Porn Index tracks how healthy the internet is by comparing the number of healthy food images shared against unhealthy ones. Go play around.

So to round out that sorbet, cake, and steak, I hope you’ll give these Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and turnips their due. I also put together a pinboard called “The Healthiest Food Porn on the Internet” in order to feature food images, including many recipes from Big Girls, Small Kitchen, that are gorgeous and also truly nourishing. See below, and please repin your heart out over on pinterest.

Follow Cara / Big Girls, Small Kitchen’s board The Healthiest “Food Porn” on the Internet on Pinterest.

And so, yes, now you’ve gazed at a lot of food, and yes, if you read this at 11am you might be feeling hungrier than you did before. But maybe that means you’ll go eat a hummus-and-avocado wrap for lunch instead of a burger and fries, or better yet, go home and make a really good dinner for yourself, perhaps inspired by something on the healthy pinterest board. Balance, which basically requires that you cook well at home, really is the way to go.

This post is sponsored by Bolthouse Farms, who also created the Food Porn Index in an effort to correct the healthy-to-unhealthy ratio in food images on the ‘net. Thanks for supporting the sponsors that keep BGSK delicious!

Happy new year!

I quit making big life resolutions a couple seasons ago, but last January, I wrote about my food resolutions for the coming year. They were simple and straightforward and accessible, since they came from the space where I spend the most time-the kitchen.

As I compiled an eating wishlist for 2013, I thought about how I like to cook and how I like to eat - and what I’d like to cook and eat more and less of. Nothing too esoteric, I promise. Scroll down to see my food resolutions for the year.

Are you making any food-related resolutions? I’d love to hear in the comments.

**Food Resolutions to Make in 2013**

1. Host more dinner parties. Dinner parties are dead. Long live the dinner party. Either way, I love dinner parties - hosting them, going to them, watching the progression of the evening from slight awkwardness to complete ease. We have yet to add a dining room table to our small apartment, but guests never seem to mind perching their plates on their knees. Still, I find excuses not to host: people are busy, I don’t know which friends to pair with other friends, I’m tired. No more, not in 2013.

In most header notes for mashed potato recipes, the Russet, Yukon, or Peruvian Purple comes off as a vehicle for butter and cream-or bacon, chives, sour cream, mascarpone, and cheddar. The existence of roasted potatoes, baked potatoes, and French fries assure us that potatoes taste pretty good on their own. Yet when we go to mash, we bring on the butter.

Last week, in one of the sweetest and best-written essays about food I’ve read in a while, Tom Junod over at Esquire taught me the Mashed Potato Rule. “There is no such thing as bad mashed potatoes as long as they’re actually potatoes, mashed,” he writes. Junod was comparing real mashed potatoes to horrible out-of-the-box flaked “mashed potatoes.” But the same rule extends to the question of whether mashed potatoes have to be instruments for conveying saturated fat to your tastebuds.