That’s right, we are going to have a girl! I’m about five and a half months along and we just found out that the little one kicking my ribs and making my belly look like a watermelon is going to be of the female persuasion. I’m thrilled and Mr. B is excited with a tiny bit of trepidation (he’s from a family of all boys). The pink purchases have commenced and her grandfather is already hoping that she will quickly learn how to bake his favorite cookies.

Beef jerky. Essentially it is just dried meat with a few seasonings, right? Not always. Have you ever looked at the ingredient list on a package of beef jerky? A few high end brands (like my favorite Trader Joe’s Sweet & Spicy Buffalo Jerky) have what would be considered normal ingredients: buffalo, sugar, soy sauce, paprika, etc. However the majority of jerky available for mass consumption has an ingredient list that sounds like a bad lab experiment: beef, corn syrup, dextrose, hydrolyzed corn and soy protein, caramel color #2- yikes! It is bad enough to make you give up beef jerky entirely. Yet the solution to satisfying the need for a lean and portable snack is not to ship in expensive jerky nor is it to surrender and eat a jerky filled with additives that make your toes curl. The solution is simple- make your own.

This past weekend Mr. B and I found ourselves in Chicago for a quick business trip. One morning I decided to walk Michigan avenue and try my hand at a bit of street photography. Photographing still life, landscapes, and animals is one thing. Pointing a camera at complete strangers? That is a completely different ball game! I was glad that I braved the strange looks and uncomfortable feelings and left with a whole new respect for those who make street photography a full time profession. Have you jumped outside of your comfort zone lately? How did it turn out?

Did you ever have music class in elementary school? When I was in first grade, in the days before budget cuts and classes of 30+ kids, we had a once per week music class. Too young to play real instruments and with short attention spans that would make a forming a choir impossible, I remember spending most of our time singing along to really crazy songs. There was the “Year 2000″ song, with the lines: “What will we eat in the year 2000? Diet pills and protein powders.” (A scary reality.) There was also the “Monster Mash”, always popular around Halloween. And of course, there was my favorite: “On top of Spaghetti, all covered with cheese I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.” Now a meatball turning into a meatball tree was a song I could get behind! The consequence of such early indoctrination with crazy songs was that I have forever associated meatballs with spaghetti. If you have one without the other it just doesn’t seem right.

There is something about a big pot of homemade tomato sauce bubbling on the stove that makes me happy. Whether it is the comforting aroma of slowly cooked vegetables or the acidic taste of ripe tomatoes mingling with garlic and thyme- it just feels like home.

Despite my day dreaming of aspens, fall in South Dakota holds its own unique beauty. Native bluestem grasses turn a fiery red and the colors of the prairie change from lush greens to the warm palette of autumn. Sunny days and crisp nights make this one of my favorite seasons.

When it comes to vegetables that invoke strong opinions beets are right behind brussels sprouts and cauliflower- you love them or you hate them. Growing up my exposure to beets was limited to thin slices of canned pickled beets on top of a salad. To my young palate the jury on beets was still out. They were neither distasteful or delicious and I probably ate them just because they turned my salad pink (a selling feature for any seven-year-old girl). It was only years later when dining out more frequently that I began to consider my opinion of the beet. Mr. B fell squarely into the “hates them” category, declaring that they taste like dirt. However after encountering roasted beets mixed into fresh salads with goat cheese, I decided that I rather liked the earthy flavor of beets. Still, with our difference of opinions, beets never made it home from the grocery store. Then enter the CSA- otherwise known as the forced-program-to-eat-more-vegetables. Each week this summer we received a huge box of assorted vegetables that had to be eaten or face a slow death in the crisper. Since I hate to let any vegetable die a slow death, I found myself faced with the challenge of cooking fresh beets.

This time of year I day dream of hiking through the aspen forests in Colorado. We were lucky enough to hit the fall color a year ago and I’ve wanted to go back ever since!

I can see the wheels turning in your head. “Another pork recipe?” you ask. Yes, yes indeed, another pork recipe. I promise that this will be the last one for a stretch but I offer no apologies. Pork, apples, and fennel, are such a happy trio that there have been zero complaints at the dinner table over the frequency of their appearance this fall.

The weather is at it again- seesawing between warm days and crisp nights. I love fall. My flip flops can still make an appearance but the flannel sheets and cold air from open windows mean summer has packed its bags until next year. In the kitchen I am ready to say farewell to gazpacho and to welcome autumn flavors with open arms. A recent weekend trip to Minneapolis (to find clothes that fit an expanding belly!) took us past several apple orchards. Never one to pass up fall apples, I arrived home with several bags of apples and a jug of freshly squeezed apple cider.