What I learned on Summer Vacation

• Invest in a full body suit if you ever plan on going tubing for 5+ hours. Otherwise, you will burn the entire front half of your body. Including your feet. And you might not be able to walk for two days.
• Take a note from the Peterson clan and pack 4 coolers for 11 people tubing 5+ hours. (We had more food than I have in my entire house. We had two kinds of sandwiches, 3 kinds of sandwich crackers, goldfish, cheez-its, pecan wheels, nectarines, plums, 2 kinds of grapes, cherries, and pineapple!)
• Add cream cheese to everything. It will probably make it better.
• Big Lou's Pizza is the best pizza on the PLANET! (It's a pizza place in South San Antonio that was featured on Travel Channel's Man vs. Food for having a 42 inch pizza!)
• How to play Cadillac/31!
• Time spent with family and friends is the best time.

These gems of knowledge were accumulated while Adam and I stayed in San Antonio for a 4 day vacation. My sister and brother-in-law came down from Denver and we all stayed at my sister's best friend's house outside of La Vernia, TX. It was a great vacation filled with food, fun, food, TOOBING (that's how I'm obligated to spell it) and food. Special thanks to Rachel and Ben for making it all possible! And thank you Pawelek's who graciously opened their home to all of us! Love yall!

The Omnivore's Dilemma

I am reading the book "Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. I HIGHLY recommend it! The dilemma he discusses is simply the idea 'What should I eat for dinner?' And since humans are omnivores we have the ability to eat pretty much anything. He examines the abundance of options American's have and how we have come to have all these options. Today while I was sitting on the couch reading this passage struck me and I wanted to share it. :)

*To give some context, he is discussing the French Paradox and the ability of Americans to latch onto any food fad as quickly as we do based on one man's ideas (Atkins...), one experiment, cookbook, etc. *

"Perhaps because we have no such culture of food in America almost every question about eating is up for grabs. Fat or carbs? Three squares or continuous grazing? Raw or cooked? Organic or industrial? Veg or vegan? Meat or mock meat? Foods of astounding novelty fill the shelves of our supermarket, and the line between a food and a "nutritional supplement" has fogged to the point where people make meals of protein bars and shakes. Consuming these neo-psuedo-foods alone in our cars we have become a nation of antinomian eaters, each of us struggling to work out our dietary salvation on our own. Is it any wonder Americans suffer from so many eating disorders? In the absence of any lasting consensus about what and how and where and when to eat, the omnivore's dilemma has returned to American with an almost atavistic force. This situation suits the food industry just fine, of course. The more anxious we are about eating, the more vulnerable we are to the seductions of the marketer and the expert's advice. Food marketing in particular thrives on dietary instability and so tends to exacerbate it. "

Pollan, Michael. "The Omnivore's Dilemma, A Natural History of Four Meals". New York: The Penguin Press, 2006.

What do you think?