A bunch of old standbys on the menu for now. I made pizza last night, and tonight I'm doing porkchops with a pan sauce and glazed carrots. Tomorrow, brisket. Sometime this week I'll do oven baked buttermilk lemon pepper chicken.

I think it's because I know I have Julia and the newer Houston Junior League cookbook in the mail- and because, after my mother mentioned the four cookbooks for a dollar she just Book Of The Monthed, I signed up and ordered this, this, this and this. All for a dollar, these expensive books I've been coveting. Even plus shipping and handling, a bargain. So I'm laying in for the plethora of new recipes by sticking to old ones.

I keep trying to work up this entry on my food and cooking beliefs. I'll get to it eventually. But you should know that I think one of our biggest problems as a society is a lack of ready access to quality food in every region. I think it is a disgrace that the poorest members of our society have so little access to basic things, like produce. I think everyone should get free nutritional and basic cooking classes from the government- it'd save money in Medicare down the road, for all the heart attacks and adult onset diabetes this nation is headed for. I have nothing but contempt for grocery chains (Ralphs, I am looking at you) who allow their stores in poorer neighborhoods to have bins of candy- CANDY- taking up 1/2 of their produce section and a liquor section that is even bigger than that.

The rest of my beliefs about food are more personal. But I've lived in those neighborhoods- I've lived there without a car. And it was enough of a pain in the ass for me, as a graduate student with lots of free time to ride an hour on the bus each way and to plan my meals and only me to worry about. If I was a working mother, or in any way disabled, or had to work more than one job or was in anyway not what I was, I can't imagine I'd have had any choice but to live off fast food and packaged, processed, junk. And that really chaps my hide.