lobita's Profile

Get a rice cooker, a food processor and a VERY good can opener. These things will be your besties!
We couldn't use a stove for over two months, and let me tell you, unless you have a huge deep freezer, you won't be able to make enough food and freeze it to last you.
I found the best dinners went something like this: open up a can of butter beans, mix with some chopped green onion, olive oil, a dash of dijon mustard and some salt and pepper to taste, then make some rice, and serve.
You could also do the same with drained kidney beans, but with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, green onion and s&p.
Also, make a lot of hummus and eat with fresh veggies (I'm gluten-free, so I don't do pita).
We did our kitchen right before our wedding, and this diet did me VERY well. I lost weight, but looked super healthy.
Oh, but I need to include three of the most important items: olives, cheese and lots and lots of wine. You'll need the alcohol to cope with the stress of your whole house being a complete mess, everything covered in dust, writing checks for thousands of dollars every week...etc. And the olives and cheese are just for fun.
Good luck!!!

I have "food issues" (sorry that my body can't tolerate gluten and peanuts, I promise you it's nothing personal against dinner party hosts), and all of the nasty comments about it here is the reason why I generally decline to go to dinner parties (other parties I just eat before I go, assuming that I won't be able to eat anything) and now I'm even shying away from going to holiday dinners at my in-laws (even though I ALWAYS tell them that I'll bring the dessert and bake any kind of gluten-free bread/rolls they want).
As for some of the insinuations here that people are making up their food allergies: the frequency of food allergies IS on the rise - the comments on this blog are just some of the evidence of that - yet it's funny how little you hear of research going on to find out WHY no one had nut allergies (except for me) back when I was a kid and now you're not even allowed to bring P&B sandwiches into some schools.
I wonder what has so dramatically changed in our food system to cause this? Surely, the HUGE prepared food industry couldn't have anything to do with the rise in allergies just as it couldn't possibly be keeping research dollars away from answering this question? No, of course not.
But I can assure you that no one with a food allergy is making it up. I wish I were...it'd make my life a lot easier (and I'd get to go to more dinner parties).

Made this last night, it was SUPER good. I oversalted it (my bad, I wasn't using a teaspoon--tsk, tsk on me), but I chopped up some cilantro and mixed it with rice to make it into a main dish. Very good.

I just made empanadas this week...similar idea with different spices, of course.

Granite-backlash makes me giggle. We had soapstone counters/farmhouse sink installed in our kitchen remodel (because we have a Chicago bungalow and wanted to stick with traditional 1920s materials) and when we had people over, one person (boyfriend of a friend) said to me, "I am SO over granite."
But with that said, my mother had granite installed in her kitchen last year. I tried and tried to convince her of another material, but she had dreamed of granite for so long it was unthinkable for her to put anything but. However, she picked a LOVELY stone (I believe Blue Pearl, it's black with blue and gray specs in it), and I really do like it.

Totally agree with Emmi! If you can, ask her what's acceptable and what's not. It REALLY sucks to feel "forced" to eat something you're not cool with, almost as much as it'd suck to have a birthday party filled with food you can't eat...in that case, it's better not to have a party at all.

The comments from the international people is exactly why I REALLY love Thanksgiving...keeps Christmas madness (a little more, anyway) in check. If we didn't have Thanksgiving, everyone would be putting up their X-mas decorations right after taking down their Halloween stuff. Granted, I've seen a few houses do this anyway, but the general consensus is that those people are crazy.
This will be my third year of hosting Thanksgiving and I can't get enough of all the Thanksgiving recipes and guides. I'm totally addicted to them. Sorry! I like that they make it okay no to serve the same dish that your mom or grandmom did...especially for someone like me who's gluten-free and can't eat the traditional green bean casserole w/ the fried onions on top.

I painted my bedroom BM Wet Concrete and it came off as REALLY purple, but in a muted way. At first I didn't like it, and I still have mixed opinions on it, but the color is growing on me and after trying to go for a neutral color, I'm glad it has personality.

Yikes, I can't imagine how much your monthly HVAC costs are, not to mention the amount of energy it uses to heat and cool.