One of the challenges in being rather abundant of figure is finding clothes that aren't 1) made like junk, 2) poorly fitted/executed, 3) heading into Mrs. Roper territory, 4) priced to cost the kingdom. Like most women facing this particular vexation - and I know that every woman faces some kind of wardrobe limitation, be it size-related, access to clothing, financial or whatever - over time I have cobbled together a collection of what I suppose could be called "solutions" sourced from the late, great Mode magazine, Vogue's annual Size (or whatever it's called) Issue, a lifetime of way-too-intimate knowledge of the offerings of the various mall-based purveyors of the aforementioned junk and/or expensiveness.

As a result my wardrobe is serviceable if not as pleasurable as I might like. Jeans from KMart (no, seriously), plain tees from Old Navy, intimates from Lane Bryant, sweaters and skirts from Talbots or Jones New York, odds and ends from a TJ Maxxish kind of place and the very occasional marked-down specialty item from Nordstrom make the bulk of my clothes-shopping routine. I don't go in for patterns much (dangerous Mrs. Ropertude, which even Nordstrom alarmingly enables) and fearing the Mimi effect I also avoid what I think of as "art" (i.e., embellished) clothing. A perfect outfit as far as I'm concerned more or less begins and ends with Donna Karen circa 1985.

Lately I've felt a call to be a bit more proactive in my wardrobing efforts, relying more on conscious, ordered choices and less on clearance-rack mayhem. To that end I've ditched some ill-considered higher-end purchases via Craig's List, donated other stuff to Goodwill, cut up still others for the rag bin and, while I cannot claim the kind of streamlined closet of the kind that would please Andree Putman*, I'm working on it. I've also decided to expand my sewing from tutus, rod-pocket curtains and pillows into more interesting territory - that is, sewing for myself.

Close perusal of the complete works of those What Not to Wear girls and a lifetime of pondering why exactly it is that I always look rather disreputable have led me to understand that I need to obtain the following: better underwear, more wrap blouses, three-quarter length or longer sleeves, a total absence of turtlenecks, boot cut jeans, accenuation of the waist and perhaps more in the way of twinset-type things. Some of this I think I'd like to try making myself.

Good. I've got a plan. That's something at least, right?

* "I love America, and I love American women. But there is one thing that deeply shocks me - American closets. I cannot believe one can dress well when you have so much." So said the much-esteemed Ms. Putman.

I had a brainstorm this morning about how to deal with a piece of furniture recently acquired from a friend and I am now being driven to utter distraction with my inability to go get started right now. Donna, my friend, gave me her great-aunt's dining room set - neither her sister nor cousins wanted it and she, knowing that I prefer old furniture to new, offered me the table, chairs, two (!) sideboards and small china cabinet. That we don't have a strict need for all of these pieces deterred me not a bit in my (perhaps unseemly speedy) acceptance of her offer for the alternative to me taking them was that they'd be put out at her curb. No, not on my watch.

Such was the disconnect between Donna's feelings about the furniture and my own that at her recent graduation party (she's a lawyer now) I kept thanking her mother for the incredible gift of their family heirlooms and her mother kept thanking me for taking "all that junk" off their hands. Count this among my life's burdens, my tendency to fall in love with peoples' junk (someday I will tell you about the bag full of costume jewelry I grabhandedly selected from my friend Anna's mother's estate - that it was offered to me reduces my shame only slightly). Whatever. I now have six matching dining room chairs, only a teensy bit in need of recovering, a thrill for which I thank Donna's great-aunt from the bottom of my junk-loving heart.

The china cabinet we put into a back room, not sure how it might be used. Our long-range plans include the purchase of a mountain house for vacations and/or retirement, but it seems a shame to keep a lovely piece set aside for what is at the moment a rather vague notion. Then this morning it hit me while reading an account of a woman glazing unlovely laundry room fixtures - the perfect use for such a sweet little cabinet.

I think I'd like to paint it for use in the Girl's bedroom as a bookshelf. Last September we brought home my own "little girl" furniture - white with brass and china pulls - and I can totally see this piece painted glossy white and filled with the Little House, Illustrated Children's Classics, Nancy Drew and all the other books that currently fill a rather rickety and very unattractive IKEA workhorse (bought in 1993 for my first "my own" apartment and now quite worn) in what is otherwise a very nice bedroom. In exchange, the existing bookcase will go into the storage room to help organize empty canning jars and sundry gardening tools.

I am so excited about this plan and so frustrated by my inability to do anything about it for at least, let's see...seven days (birthday parties - for my own and others' kids, out-of-town company, scout meeting, a girls' gathering at a friend's house, family dinner with my newly engaged (!) grandmother, etc., etc., etc.) that I am going to have to force myself to stick to the knitting, as it were, until then. The not-so-small matter of convincing Braniac that this is a good idea (he being of the twin beliefs that furniture probably oughtn't be painted and that dining room furniture belongs in the dining room and living room furniture belongs in the...) makes nary a dent in what I am certain is an excellent plan.

The concept of quitting has been much on my mind lately. Well, not quitting per se, where one makes a conscious choice to stop doing something but rather I've been thinking of a more passive variety, the kind where after a (possibly long) while one sits up, looks around and says, "Hey, remember that thing we used to do? How come we don't do that anymore? What happened?" But there's no clear break, no before and after.

Along those lines, lately I've kind of been wondering about this blog. I've not been able to remember why I started writing - other than the whole canning thing - but carried on out of inertia and a feeling like this little collection of bytes has seen me through quite a lot and some loyalty was in order. I mean, from the first post until now I've moved house twice, given birth, planned parties, taken trips, read books and had all manner of kitchen adventures. Inasmuch as a blog is a diary, this is the closest I've ever come to the latter.

While pondering whether or not to continue, I embarked on a house cleaning and decluttering spree. The lengths to which I need to go with said cleaning are a bit embarassing for a family that hasn't lived in this house two years yet especially a family led by two adults who love to believe that they don't buy much. Ahem. As part of this cleaning I've discovered all sorts of interesting things - copies of apparently unread cooking magazines shoved into the cookbook shelf, a barely begun needlepoint chair cover, plans for a wedding cake I intended to make just to see if I could do it, documentation of plans to organize a reunion of the descendants of one of my great-great-great-grandfathers and more. In other words, evidence of things I used to enjoy doing and writing about but about which I'd completely forgotten.

How could I have forgotten? I sat down to read the Gourmet magazine I'd found and vaguely remember once having had a subscription to that and two or three of its competitors, and how on the day they'd arrive I'd declare a household day of recipe experimentation and plan out the next month's new meals to try. How could I have forgotten? Somewhere along the line, I'd simply quit reading cooking magazines, despite my profound enjoyment of the genre. I don't recall deciding to stop, I just did. I realize that I have been missing this sense of culinary adventure and the sheer joy of receiving such pure fun in the mail. I didn't know I'd been missing these things, but it's clear to me now that I was, profoundly.

Likewise with the needlepoint. I remember fondly my paternal grandmother's needlepoint chair pads and recall with sadness that when she died I was not in a position to ask to have the chairs (or even just the covers) shipped to me "back East" with the result that the chairs were donated to some or other worthy organization and lost to the family forever. But I took great pleasure in planning out covers of my own depicting my favorite flowers (hydrangea, lillies, lilacs), purchasing supplies and, like a medieval chatelaine working on her tapestries, embarking on what I saw to be a multi-year project. And then? Nothing. It appears that I quit that, too, without really having decided to.

It occurs to me that it wasn't so much the blog that troubled me as that I couldn't imagine what on earth I used to put in it. Finding these fairly recent artifacts of my abandoned creative life along with a short survey of my archives revealed to me that I couldn't think of anything to write about because I'd ceased altogether doing the kinds of things that caused me to start writing in the first place. A year or so ago I thought that the slowdown in canning had been the problem. Turns out I wasn't looking in the right place. It was my own unconscious turning away from, quitting if you will, my own creativity in favor of a severe practicality that emphasized only what I could define as useful, dictated by forces external to my family and home. Thank goodness I've realized what I'd done before I'd practical'ed myself into a serious depression.

Coming up? Less practical, more delightful.

On a long ago Monday morning I arrived at work to find my boss dabbing at tears and sniffling. Being the wretchedly self-centered person that I am, my mind turned to things that could make me share her sadness - was our department being eliminated? Was the bonus pool smaller than expected? No. She'd argued with her fiancé. Phew! Comforted that I shared not her problem, I inquired as to the nature of the quarrel.

"He laughed at me because I think we shouldn't add stuff to the spaghetti sauce. I mean, if the company wanted it there they'd have put it there in the first place, right?!" she wailed.

Turns out the happy couple had been making baked ziti for dinner on Friday evening. My boss' intended added some herb or spice to the jarred sauce and she objected on the aforementioned grounds. Now, this was my boss. On the one hand, if she wanted to assert commercial spaghetti sauce purity, I was going to line up right behind her (saving my battles for issues affecting the bonus pool, say). On the other hand, I was utterly stupefied by the intensity of her opinion on the matter.

I asked if she'd never added salt, pepper or butter to frozen corn (leaving aside that it's possible to buy preseasoned frozen corn), or red pepper flakes to pizzeria pizza. In fact, I pointed out, with this line of reasoning one could argue that if the ziti company had wated its product enjoyed with sauce of any kind it would have put it there (leaving aside also that it's possible to buy canned and frozen presauced pasta).

I don't remember if I convinced her that a little oregano in the Prego was no reason to argue. I do remember thinking that if no one ever messed with commercial products to make them closer to personal tasts then few people were likely to learn to cook at all these days, what with home ec being eliminated from school curricula and the knowledge not really being handed down generationally as it was in the past.

Futzing around with the offerings of Kraft, Lipton, et. al., may well be the path to relying on those companies less. It's not that far a leap from adding garlic to a rice-and-butter mix to realizing that one can add both garlic and butter to plain rice, resulting in a healthier, tastier and cheaper meal. Lately I'm excited about learning to make my own cheese and hamburger buns. But I couldn't even consider these projects if I hadn't myself back in the day added a bit of something to a jarred or canned whatsit and worked forward from there.

I've made it plain here that I'm not among Sandra Lee's greatest fans. Truthfully, though, my feelings are complicated. "Semi-homemade" may not be a long-term goal I'd advocate, but I'd say that these days it's a totally honorable path to journey on the way to "I made it myself."

One of my pals adheres to the financial advice dispensed by Dave Ramsey and through her I've been exposed to a bit of his recommended method. Ramsey's approach to these things can be summed up by debt = bad which, although simple, is probably generally accurate. While my exposure to his actual output (despite covering any number of books, radio broadcasts, podcasts, written columns, textbooks for his "Financial Peace University" and so on - he's like the Martha Stewart of money) is almost non-existant I am familiar with his saying that one should live on "beans and rice, rice and beans" until the family debt is completely eliminated.

The message encourages frugality and responsibility, although I never thought that "beans and rice, rice and beans" was all that tough a prescription, as catchphrases go. Beans and rice is a lovely meal. Rice and beans, too, for that matter. As I ruminated on why such a delightful, nutritious, native-to-many-cultures dish was being cast as a pennance for financial irresponsibility - said ruminations happening as I was preparing last night's dinner of, natch, beans and rice and rice and beans - I realized that the way Dave Ramsey means beans and rice is probably much different than the way I, and most home cooks, actually prepare them.

I think that what he's after is this notion that, until one has paid off one's debt - a good and worthy goal - one should eat plain and uninspiring food. I envision Minute Rice and a can of store-brand beans, doled out to the miserable hoards looking forward to the day when mom is allowed by Mr. Ramsey's advice to buy a steak (with cash!) and they can all be happy again.

But no! I say to all Ramseyites that your days of beans and rice can be lovely, not punishing, largely because the reason that beans and rice came to be such a staple of peoples all over the world is precisely because it is both healthy and relatively inexpensive, and can be augmented by bits and pieces of whatever condiments, leftover meats and veggies might be on-hand. A bit of pepper, onion, grated carrot, diced squash, kale, vinegar, sausage or some of all of these and you've got a dish to please kings and paupers alike.

These days I start by rehydrating beans in my rice cooker on the "soup" setting, although I do keep some canned black and kidney beans and chick peas around for speed on the days we need it. Lentils and split peas don't require this treatment and are also nice for times when we're running in a thousand directions. Once you settle the question of what bean(s) you'd like and what you need to do to them to get ready, work on the rest.

I start by dicing some onion and mincing a bit of garlic, and sauteeing them in whatever I've got - olive oil works, as does bacon fat or broth (or a combination). If I've got bell pepper, that gets chopped and added, too. I've also been known to add grated carrot at this point or shredded cabbage or kale. This is a good time to add meats as the onion begins to become translucent - sausage like chorizo or kielbasa is nice, as is chopped leftover beef or pork - but meat is not a requirement of a tasty, filling outcome. If you've only got onion, that's fine. If you've got half an onion and an inch of carrot and the bottom half of a pepper, that's fine, too. Or whatever. There are few rules other than you use what you have and like.

When the veggies are heated, add the drained beans (remember when working with dried beans that, like rice, the end result will be much more in volume than you started with) and perhaps even some fresh or canned diced tomato (or not) and stir. Just before taking off the heat, season to taste with salt and pepper and whatever other spices seem appropriate (adobo can be nice or maybe some curry or garam masala with lentils or peas) and add any fragile greens like spinach.

Serve hot, over rice, with any condiments that might taste good. Last night we had no meat in the pot, but salsa, plain yogurt, pepper sauce and grated cheese rounded things out nicely. On other occasions mango pickle and - a recurring theme at our house - plain yougurt was nice. Once I had only a bit of homemade paneer from a friend but diced up very fine and used with lots of peas and spinach it made a very nice dinner stretched for seven people.

The point of all this is that "beans and rice, rice and beans" needn't be thought parismonious. It is, of course, but not in any way that I think Dave Ramsey means it. Messing around with a bit of this and a bit of that as ingredients are available is honest home cooking as performed by millions of cooks throughout time. Beans and rice should be an end, and one we're happy to be at, and not a means to an end to be endured until something better comes along.

There's something about autumn that inspires to me to cook. Sure, summer has the fresh veggies and fruits and so on and I always greet warming weather with a resolve to act as if I live in one of Peter Mayle's books but the problem is that I actually don't live in one of Peter Mayle's books and while all those fresh, minimally-treated veggies and fruits are lovely they don't offer much in the way of comfort. Plus, when it's 9,000 degrees in one's kitchen making a tian or some other summer dish isn't so appealing. Hence, my predictable tiring of sauteed green beans and salade caprese.

But fall....now there's some comfort, food-wise. You've got your squashes (so far we have seven - ! - butternuts growing), your cabbages, your kales and chards, not to mention apples and pears and nuts. With a few roasts in the freezer and the addition of some hearty grains, well, I feel cozier just thinking about it.

Our daytime temps haven't fallen all that much but there is an overnight chill and slight zip to the air that tells of the coming changes. Along with those changes my thoughts move to pot roasts, macaroni and cheese, apple crisp and mulled cider. My body might be healthier in summer what with the extra daylight for outdoor activity and the sheer variety of fresh produce available, but come fall my soul revives. Perhaps it's a kind of reverse seasonal affective disorder?

I'll finish canning the peppers and tomatoes like a good girl, all the while looking forward to the first pumpkin I'll smash up into butter (lots of brown sugar and candied ginger with this - oh, how lovely to think about it) and the first big pot of bigos. And I'll need to check up on my supplies of cocoa powder (hot chocolate), molasses (gingerbread) and cinnamon (baked oatmeal).

I'd better start today. There's another flock of geese overhead and there's not a moment to lose.

A few quickies:

- Today is the first day of first grade. Despite the familial roundabout over homeschooling, the Boy reported for duty this morning at our neighborhood elementary. He asked to attend, a fact that weighed heavily against our inclination to pull him out. Actually, what he asked for was to 1) go to school and 2) still have "family school". We figure we can learn something from his view of these options as being not of the zero-sum nature that most grown-ups would assign. He would miss his buddies, we know, and that he had such a cheerful aspect in looking forward to the start of the school year must surely count for something. As I pointed out to a friend recently, the television show Family Ties had years of good ratings based on nothing other than the notion that sometimes kids will desire to create almost exactly the same kind of life that their parents would have rather not had. Go figure.

- You know I had fun packing his lunch, right? I am addicted to Cooking Cute and the thousands of Bento pics available from Flickr and have happily shared my addiction with both kids. Hello Kitty silicon cups? Yes! Lightning McQueen fruit picks? Of course! It's not consumerism, it's Bento! This morning I placed a BBQ pork sandwich, apple slices (some cut thin and then made into rocket ship shapes with a cookie cutter), a diamond-shaped Rice Krispie treat (a fun, sticky project with kids) and locomotive-topped skewers of alternatiing black and green olives into his little lunch carrier. Bliss. Lunch packing may just be the salve that gets me through my kids' schooling.

- The apple was from one of our backyard trees. Brainiac is consumed with apple picking lately and seems to have rather high expectations with regards to my ability to deal with them all. He has constructed an apple picker out of an empty coffee tin and some extenda-pole thing that is able to reach all but the very highest samples. Luckily, the kids don't hold their unsprayed and not-ready-for-Superfresh looks against them and eat them by the dozen.
- I am sick of tomatoes. You will remind me of this, won't you, when come February I yearn in poetic terms for last month's bacon and tomato sandwiches? I still have about 20 pounds to deal with and I am fighting my preference to fling them into the compost and turn my back on the whole affair. But, no, I am a responsible sort and will manage another dozen pints or so. I swear, I am NOT picking anymore other than the cherry varieties that I've been drying. Oh, but I might pick some of the remaining unripened for fried green tomatoes (use bacon grease for the frying and salsa for topping). That I could cope with.

- The geese have been flying the last few days and there's a distinct chill in the morning air. Since I am not among summer's biggest fans these are cheering developments. September is pleasant and happy month, being as it is the time when both my wedding anniversary and the birthday of my oldest fall, but its real purpose is to serve as the gateway to October.