Introducing Sweet Pea

Dear Friends,

First let me say, happy fall! And second: it's been far too long. Apologies that I've been so silent here. Our little daughter is keeping us busy — amazingly, mind-blowingly busy. Rich and I work at home and take turns watching her, and we feel completely awed to get to be a part of her everyday. Awed and blessed and exhausted enough, by the end of each day, that we "could sleep standing up, like a horse" — a phrase from Frances Mayes' "Under the Tuscan Sun" that comes to me often. (If you like a good food memoir — a terrible descriptor, but you know what I mean — I can't recommend it enough. The movie was beyond horrendous, but the book is sincerely a thing of beauty.)

Also keeping us busy are some new projects. Rich, among other things, has two novels in the works — different styles, but both with characters so real and idiosyncratic that I now feel they live among us — and I've just started a new blog, Sweet Pea, on the Forbes site.

It's partly about, for now anyway, deciding to feed Emmy a vegetarian diet, and for her sake wanting to become a smarter vegetarian than I ever was on my own. I want our meals to be less about the subtraction of meat than the addition of lots of new protein sources and other delicious and healthy things I've been too complacent to try, discover or find out more about.

The motivation for the blog was kind of a time-saving one. I found myself wondering about things (just how much protein does she actually need each day? are genetically modified foods bad for kids? is honey really any better for her than brown sugar?) and researching things (what exactly is Salba, the trademarked "ancient grain" used by the Happy Baby brand?) and thought that if I'm wondering and reading and asking around, chances are good that other parents have the same questions.

I'm excited for the chance to collect these thoughts all together, along with the pleasures of cooking for Em and, of course, my farmers' market visits. If you've been missing The Market Report, I hope you'll click on Sweet Pea for a fix.

Also, Salba, it turns out, is chia seed — as in Chia Pets, explaining the name change — which is actually a great source of omega 3 fatty acids and ALAs (alpha lipoic acids), nutrients that infant formula is often fortified with. Beyond the baby set, triathletes apparently dig it, too.

Again, take good care, friends. I hope you'll visit me soon and often at the new site.

Love,
Michelle