I don’t just get junk mail at home, I get junk mail in the office too. Last week they sent me a toy catalog of all things, but I couldn’t resist thumbing through it for a few minutes. Inside I came across these awesome play sets from Melissa and Doug. I used to have a huge collection of play food and my favorite pastime was to set everything up on the floor and write a menu for my imaginary restaurant using all possible combinations of plastic food. This mostly involved such complex dishes as Alphabet Soup and Grilled Cheese, but it’s the thought that counts. I wish I’d had an Ice Cream Parlor set or these adorable Slice and Bake Cookies. My desserts section would have been much more well rounded.

Last night I tried out the new Président Brie Log. Have you seen this in the stores yet? I think it’s a little bit genius. Essentially, it’s a perfectly portioned round log of brie that has a thin edible rind that allows you to simply slice off a piece of creamy brie and top it on a cracker or sandwich. I didn’t have any crackers on hand so I made an omelet with onions, apples, and brie. Of course, my omelet didn’t come out and dinner ended up being scrambled eggs, but it was still really good. In the past I’ve always been a baked brie kind of girl, but I think the Président Brie Log would be a perfect addition to a cold cheese tray. I’m certain it will be gobbled down just as quickly as its warmed counterpart.

In case you missed it, I was given the opportunity (Thank you Chip and Kristin) to answer the Cookthink Questionnaire. It reminds me of the Q&A that James Lipton does on Inside the Actor’s Studio with all of his guests, not that I’m Meryl Streep or anything. Personally, I’d rather be Kate Winslet or Amy Adams anyway.

I tried a new local grocery delivery service this week called In Season and I was very impressed. According to their website, In Season’s goal is to bring you the best local food while creating a new market for small farmers and producers. The process is simple, and actually allows you to choose the items you want. I find this so much more useful and functional than receiving a weekly mystery box of fruits and vegetables that I quite possibly don’t have any interest in. After all, a girl can only eat so many apples and bean sprouts…

The products available for purchase include dairy, fresh pastas, fruits, vegetables, meats, bread, and more. Your delivery date is based on your location. For instance, I live in Cambridge, so my food arrived Tuesday morning bright and early (before 8:00 AM). I was beyond happy with the presentation of my order. The delivery person placed all of my perishable items in the cooler I set out in our lobby, and my other items were neatly packed in brown paper bags. All of the produce was clean and attractive (even the potatoes were tidy), and not a single egg was broken. I point this out because PeaPod always breaks my eggs and it drives me crazy. I’m hopeful that the eggs from Chip-In Farm will be a good substitute for my much loved and missed “grammy eggs.”

So far my favorite products have been:

• Salad Greens from Olivia’s Garden located in New Gloucester, Maine
• The fresh pasta from Lilly’s
• The goat cheese from Valley View Farm
• The gorgeous turnips from Butter Brook Farm in Acton (Look out Uncle Bob! There’s a new turnip sheriff in town)

In Season is a bit pricey, but no more so than Whole Foods. My only true quibble with the service was that the meat comes frozen. I guess I was expecting brown paper packages tied up with string and a hand delivery by Julie Andrews, but let’s be realistic, the majority of the fresh meat I buy ends up in the freezer anyway. Right now In Season is offering free delivery if you spend $100. I doubt I’ll be utilizing this service every week, but I want to stress again that the quality of these products is phenomenal and I definitely envision having a delivery from time to time. It should be very exciting to see how In Season will expand their services and offerings in the future.

I finally gave in and began to wear my winter coat. I didn’t want to, but after freezing on my morning walk to the T every day I decided it was time to admit defeat. As the cold weather begins to overtake the northeast my time outside drastically reduces, and I can usually be found curled up in a chair watching a movie or reading a good book. When the temps dip below zero, there is nothing quite as satisfying as a fabulous hearty meal on a chilly winter evening. If you’re looking for new recipes that fit into this category then The Ski Country Cookbook by Barbara Scott-Goodman could become your go-to manual.

Images of majestic mountains and powdery slopes are interspersed amongst luscious plates of stick-to-your-ribs dishes. Stews, pastas, chili, and breads — they’re compiled here in all their high carb glory.  Just the way I like it! When the snow starts to fall, and we all know that it will eventually, I think you’ll definitely want to set down a platter of red wine-braised short ribs on your dining room table. Or maybe you’d rather whip up a batch of warm cheddar and chive biscuits for some unexpected house guests? Personally, I’m looking forward to writing my Christmas list in the company of a big bowl of lemon-scented olives.

Whether you live in Boston or Austin, I don’t think you’ll be hard pressed to find a crowd of friends who could possibly pass up the chance to share in these essential comfort foods. Barbara Scott-Goodman also spearheaded another gorgeous cookbook you may already be familiar with called The Beach House Cookbook.

With all the excitement surrounding the announcement of production beginning on the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie, shopping for foodie baby shower gifts, and flipping my lid over the Foodie Babies Wear Bibs book I started remembering all of the stories I loved as a kid that involved food in some way or another.

The Little House books are a prime example of this. They’re full of food. So much so that there’s even a companion cookbook. I was always jealous that Laura Ingalls got to make maple sugar candy, pancake men, and vanity cakes. In real life I just got yelled at if I tried to eat snow, and my grandmother’s attempts at pancake men usually ended up looking slightly decapitated. I guess living on the frontier wasn’t as fantastic as I wanted to believe, unless you were a boy. You see In Farmer Boy, Alonzo got to pull taffy. For some reason that always sounded like an exotic adventure on par with escaping from the Temple of Doom with Indiana Jones. To this day I’ve never had the pleasure of participating in a taffy pull.

I feel obligated to put Blueberries for Sal on this list since I grew up in Maine, but honestly I hated blueberries as a kid. I was forcibly taken on too many marathon berry picking expeditions in the hot summer sun to ever have fond thoughts of the fruit or this classic story. Dear parents: no kid wants to go berry picking for four hours when they can be at home trying desperately to beat Paper Boy on the Nintendo while chain snacking on orange freezer pops.

In contrast, Bread and Jam for Francis is so loved that it’s made the cut out of hundreds of other books I grew up reading and has now been retired to the quiet serenity of my office bookshelf.  Very few childhood books received this sort of reverent “put out to pasture treatment.” Even the 60 plus Baby-Sitter’s Club books I cherished were eventually donated to the local library.  Why is Bread and Jam for Francis so good? Two words: egg cup. I obsessed about this plot point and pestered my family constantly as to why we didn’t have egg cups. They looked so fancy! I must have an egg cup! It wasn’t the whole jam part of the book, or the not so subtle “it’s good to try new foods idea” that I was enthralled with, but the egg cup illustration on the first few pages. I received my hard boiled eggs in a bowl so obviously in my mind I was very deeply deprived.

Popcorn, pretzels, jelly beans and toast?! What more could a kid ask for?! Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving still knocks my socks off. I honestly think that someday I’m going to have people over for a “traditional” Snoopy and friends shindig. Who wants to be included on the invite?

If we were doing a High Fidelity inspired top five list than Mickey Mouse’s Picnic would have to be included for most read and beloved picture book of all time. Like previously mentioned books, it wasn’t always the story as a whole that would become memorable for me, but a single piece of the plot or artwork. In Mickey Mouse’s Picnic the mention of “paper tape” fascinated me. In the story, Minnie fastens a knife to to the bottom of the cake pan she’s bringing to their outdoor get together with paper tape. Unfortunately, The picnic feast gets stolen while everyone is frolicking at the swimming hole. The day is surely ruined, but wait! Just in the nick of time Donald appears with a picnic to share with the crowd. Hmm…Mickey and Minnie are suspicious and do a G-rated CSI investigation. Flipping over the cake they find Minnie’s knife stuck to the bottom with the now infamous paper tape. For some reason I was completely befuddled by the idea of paper tape, even after it was explained to me that paper tape was masking tape I still focused on this tiny piece of the tale for years.

Ramona Quimby Age 8 has several chapters where food plays an amusing role. Who can forget when Ramona and Beezus have to make dinner for their parents after they complain about their dad’s cooking? Or how about daredevil Ramona cracking an egg on her head to impress the “Yard Ape.” I still get the quivers thinking about that gooey mess sliding through Ramona’s hair. Ick!

Recently, young adult titles Life as We Knew it, and The Dead and the Gone have given me terrifying food related nightmares and essentially scarred me for the rest of my life.  Now every time I’m putting away groceries I think really melancholy thoughts like…what if this box of elbow macaroni and this can of diced peaches is the only food I get to eat for a week because a meteor knocked the moon out of whack and the weather is trying to kill us!  And then CK forcibly takes the iced coffee out of my hand and makes me go for a run.  I think I’m more afraid of starvation now than my 5-year-old self was afraid of the dark. Thanks Susan Beth Pfeffer!

Are there foodie books from your childhood, that stand out for you still? Please tell me I wasn’t the only freaky kid begging for egg cups and wishing for a pretzel main course at Thanksgiving.

As I mentioned previously my good friend Meghan is having a baby girl next month. Last weekend I attended her baby shower and I have to say I agonized over what to get her. I knew she would receive oodles of pretty pastel clothes, blankets, and toys so my goal was to find gifts for her that were unique, functional, and hopefully memorable. In the end I decided on the following items:

I fell in love with these adorable MooMe bibs, packaged to resemble baby food jars, and had such a hard time deciding between the fruit and veggie versions that I ended up just buying both. In addition to being so darn cute the bibs also made of 100% organic cotton.

Future foodie babies need to start young so I couldn’t resist stocking baby Emily’s bookshelf with two timeless food filled storybooks: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Pickles to Pittsburgh.

Feeding Meghan’s baby is obviously my ultimate goal, and until she’s old enough to enjoy ice cream sandwiches and Pistachio Rocket Pops, her mom will be able to whip up healthy and wholesome meals for her with the assistance of the So Easy Baby Food kit and the First Meals cookbook. All of this undoubtedly delicious food can than be served on a whimsical La Mer ocean themed dinnerware set. Finally, just for fun, I included this ingenious Baby Owner’s Starter Kit, which comes with: The Baby Owner’s Manual, a growth chart with stickers for marking baby’s progress, a diaper changing Instructional poster (I could use this since I’ve honestly never changed a diaper in my life), a babysitter’s memo pad, and a decorative magnet.

Now we just have to wait for Baby Emily to make her grand debut so we can all begin her foodie education.

Because I don’t have enough useless tools and strange boxed mixes in my kitchen, Williams-Sonoma has gone and tempted me with the notion that I can make Animal Crackers at home. I just don’t think I could possibly be happy until I have a herd of lions, tigers, and bears prancing on my snack plate.

Remember when you were a kid and you’d watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and practically hurl during the scene when the snakes and chilled monkey brains were served at the sinister banquet? Well if you’re into movie nostalgia and the nasty bits you might want to check out this auction on eBay for an authentic monkey head prop from the film. It’s got a pretty steep price, but I guess it would be quite the conversation piece to serve ice cream in [link via Cinematical].

Once upon a time, for about 5 days I tried to be a vegetarian. I bought 10 pounds of books on the subject at Barnes and Noble and than proceeded to crave meat like it was my job over the next few days. On the fifth day I made CK take me to Boston Market where I promptly ate a Chicken Pot Pie. While my vegetarian attempt was a complete and utter failure I really do admire people who are able to follow through with it. To that end there’s a really excellent essay over at Slate you may want to check out. It’s a vegetarian’s take on what it’s like to be ostracized and misunderstood by your meat eating acquaintances [link via Herbivoracious].

I’ve been reading John Grisham novels since 7th grade. At that time I was convinced that I was going to be a lawyer. Obviously I was temporarily insane at that time in my life. Recently, one of Grisham’s latest books, Playing for Pizza, has been optioned to be made into a film. The story revolves around a down and out quarterback for the Cleveland Browns who takes a spot on an Italian football team in Parma, Italy. The book is full of incredibly vivid descriptions of the food and wine of the region so I’m sure the movie will have plenty of mouth watering shots of decadent dishes [link via Cinematical].

Proof that you really can have chickens in the suburbs. I guess there’s hope for us all to have “grammy eggs” of our own some day.

I like macaroni and cheese just as much as the next girl, but I definitely have to draw the line at macaroni and cheese in a can [link via Newlywed in Dubai].

I’ve never really been big on recipe cards, frankly what I like to use the most to cook with is my Macbook, but these extremely cheerful, colorful cards are so cute I might just have to invest in a few [link via Crafterbation].

A new cupcake shop has opened in Boston. Sweet is apparently charging $3.25 a piece for a regular cupcake. Obviously I am in the wrong business. Do you think I have enough experience to be a cupcake salesperson? Either way I’ll be heading on over soon to test out the sugary goods. [link via We Are Not Martha].

Top 5 Recipes I’m Dying To Try

Zucchini Faux Pasta with Italian Sausage from Elle at Elle’s New England Kitche
Erin’s special Peanut Butter Nutter Butter Birthday Cake at Two More Seconds
The Brown Sugar Banana Apple Monkey Bars made by Sharon at Culinary Adventures of a New Wife
Tiramisu Macarons from Weeva at Weevalicious Recipe
The serious snack of Peanut Butter Popcorn from Francie at Ramblings of a Frantic Home Cook