Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Bannocks aside, those preserves are awesome.

Once, while on an extremely tight budget, I made a bologna and sprouts sandwich. It was sobering lesson that scarcity doesn't always inspire greatness.

I'm a big fan of frozen puff pastry and Morningstar Farms Buffalo Wings may be my perfect dunk food. I just discovered Trader Joes Orange Chicken and while I'm not a huge fan of the sauce, the frozen chicken chunks are the best I've found, by far. They're great tossed in buffalo sauce.

Where can one find real lard? A butcher? I want to get into using it in place of shortening, but I'm scared of the hydrogenized brick.

No lettuce for me. If I want a salad with my burger, I'll have it on the side.

Self check-out is awesome! I don't find that it's difficult to use and although different stores sometimes have slightly different nuances, it doesn't take more than one trip to figure out what to do if I bring my own bags or have coupons. Plus, it's fun to memorize the PLU codes for produce. It's perfect for me because I take a few small trips to the grocery store each week and the store I frequent has two sets of self-checkout machines - express and unlimited items - which helps to better direct traffic and keep the lines short.

My grandma used to run a deli, long before I was born. She cooked simple meals for herself and her friend, Duke, and made he best peanut butter toast in the history of the world. Every once in a while though, she would come out of the blue with a seemingly random, inspired creation from the old deli days. I woke up one morning and she had bags packed, the car idling - knowing her, it had probably been idling since she woke up at 5:30 that morning - I speedily dressed at her urging and we hit the beach. It was summer, rocky and we perched on rocks overlooking the sound while she unwrapped polish sausage sandwiches, rich with olive oil and piled with sauerkraut. While we ate, she told me about how she used to make them at the deli all the time, and woke up that morning with the need to make them again. It was the first time I realized that food is in your bones.

The biggest change for me is eating fresh. By finding ways to make good food, quickly, I'm eating far less processed food and feeling much better.

Mac and cheese!

No more laziness, no more throwaway frozen meals. I'm going to cook, grow and live with my food.

Spaghetti carbonara.

Mayonnaise: A classic fat delivery device, primarily used when the consumer desires little more than to spread lard on a slice of bread, but prefers to avoid the open-mouthed stares of friends and onlookers.

The corniest corn muffins. I'm SO there!