My friend Sanura of My Life Runs on Food has launched a new food blog inspired by Kwanzaa.

Check out the post I wrote about collard greens and potlikker:

Kujichagulia: Honoring Potlikker to Reclaim Traditional Foodways and Ourselves.

Put a bowl of cashews or almonds in front of me and you’d better not blink. But for some reason, the butters made of these nuts are too much for me and they sit in the pantry for months. There’s something about the way the taste changes when they’re ground that is too rich for my palate.

This past weekend I hung out with J and his kid at the grandparents’. One of the things best things about going over there is the kitchen. When J and his 9-year-old are ignoring me and doing things that 9-year-olds like better than hanging out with their father’s girlfriend, I use the time to bake.

Lately, it’s been all about cookies.

A few months ago J made an amazing pecan cookie from a recipe in his mom’s old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook; the one in the binder. It inspired me to revisit my own cookie making past.

A personal chef friend of mine has decided to transition to a Paleo diet, a kind of grain-free Real Food diet, if you will. I told her I’d support her by experimenting with not eating bread and products with flour. I’ve limited my bread intake to 2-3 times a week with interesting results, but I will be holding on to my weekly pancake ritual.

With a forgotten jar of almond butter I’d purchased for my dad (he too found the taste to be too much for his palate) and a gift of crunchy peanut butter from Once Again Coop, searched online for a flourless peanut butter cookie recipe and came across this one.

Using this recipe, I substituted brown sugar for white sugar.  Forming the cookies were a bit tricky; while this recipe calls for an egg, the chocolate chips did not hold well. I had to force the chips into the balls of dough.

It was even worse for the crunchy peanut butter – both the chips and the chopped peanuts were trying to free themselves from their destiny.

I made three batches of the cookies, almond butter, peanut butter, and almond & peanut butter. The almond butter ones were so good that I was mad I hadn’t made them smaller.

The last batch was just supposed to be just almond butter but I didn’t have enough for the recipe and I also wanted to see if adding an extra egg would hold the chips in. Instead, I ended up with a much wetter batter than I wanted, so I had to add in the remaining peanut butter.

The recipe says to bake for 12 to 14 minutes, but I only baked them for 12. I got a very chewy but slightly crispy cookie. The batch with 2 eggs is a bit chewier and puffier than the first two batches.

This recipe is a great one bowl recipe that takes little time.

I could make this every weekend.

Good thing my oven is broken.

I love food. If you invite me to a party, there had better be food. If there’s no food, there’s a good chance I’ll leave and go find something to eat. And maybe, if I still like you, I’ll come back for your party. Or worse, I’ll order takeout and have it delivered. Be warned.

When I’m in my city, I eat the best quality my budget will allow. And occasionally, I’ll eat something that will cause my friends whiplash if they catch me in action. When I’m out of town and I have limited options, I’m not going to starve myself. It’s not rational.

And that’s where my 80/20 comes in.

Eighty percent of the time, I’m eating green, clean, and local. The other twenty percent? All bets are off. Give me the greasy diner food where EVERYTHING is cooked on the same grill that only gets cleaned once a day. The end of the day. Give me the REAL NY slice. Give me my mama’s home cooking.

Chances are, you’re not going to always be able to eat what you want to, when you want to. Beating yourself up about making a “bad” food choice makes for an unhealthy relationship with food, and the power of negative thought is far worse than that bag of cheese puffs.

So, think about how you can come up with your own food rule.

Start where you are, keeping your budget, lifestyle, and what you have access to in mind. When you can do better, eat better. If you can’t, make the best decision given your choices and keep it moving.

Life is too short to be so fundamentalist about food.

I grew up drinking milk like it was water, eating collard greens seasoned with pork, and devouring baked macaroni and cheese with so much milk, cheese and butter I could moo after a helping. My mom prepared chitlins for Christmas, and pig’s feet for New Year’s Eve. I didn’t have to eat chitlins and pig’s feet (thank EVERYONE), but I knew to expect them without fail once or twice a year (sometimes the pig’s feet made an appearance during cookouts).

I don’t eat most of what I grew up with today and I’m OK with that. My mother, on the other hand, finds it incredibly offensive that I don’t. I never told her she shouldn’t eat the foods she likes, never said any of the disturbing things about food people shouldn’t say at the table, and I will still swear by her down home, everything-from-scratch cooking. Nevertheless, my dietary philosophy is an affront to her sensibilities.

She doesn’t understand it. I don’t know how to explain it further to her. I eat for pleasure and health, but health usually trumps pleasure, and I rarely eat something I don’t like.

As you’re settling into your new dietary philosophy, try to remember that you once stood on the other side. Your relatives don’t have to be wrong for you to be right. Instead of being frustrated by their unwillingness to change for you (yes, that IS what you’re asking them to do) try to be grateful for the privilege of being able to choose what you want to eat every day.

Those white potatoes, Salisbury steaks, and casseroles saved you and your relatives many a night, and there’s nothing you can do to change the culinary choices that were made. Besides, all that food history is deeply embedded in your DNA – you might as well embrace your culinary heritage for what it is.

The best thing you can do is eat well for yourself at every meal, and pay it forward through your progeny.

Your relatives may never change their food habits.

You don’t have to like it, you just have to respect it.

I will be the first to admit that I am obsessed with food. It might make me certifiable at times, but my friends find me entertaining, so I’m not worried.

But I do get annoyed that people can come up with 101 excuses as to why they can’t eat better (real food, food with ingredients you can pronounce): I don’t have the time, real food is too expensive, I don’t know how to cook, …

The truth of the matter is, we all make time for the things we want to do. It’s one of the habits that grownups learned to perfect, after all those childhood years of being forced to do a lot of things we didn’t want to do. Like eat vegetables. Or drink water.

If you’re a grownup, act like one. There are too many resources online and in real life, free and at cost, that can help you eat better.

Think eating better is too expensive? Fine. You’re body will have no problem making you pay for today’s choices twenty, thirty years for now.

And if you don’t know how to cook, culinary schools and a number of colleges offer public instruction in cooking. Chances are, you have friends who know how to cook, so barter their expertise with groceries and not only will you eat well, you’ll have your friends to eat with.

So, kwitchurbelyakin and just eat better.