Terry Willits

Tips that give you food for thought.

I picked up 101 Quick Tips to Make Your Home Taste Sense Sational by Terry Willits at a used book store a few years ago. At that time, I was trying to embrace Domestic Goddess-hood, and thought that any book that could offer 101 tips towards a better home was one to read.

A quick flip through the book shows you that it really is just 101 pages with a tip on each page – not a book full of lengthy explanations and wordy examples. Willits cuts to the chase with a concise and useful tip every time.

Reading through the book, her tips cover a variety of topics: from entertaining (“The most enjoyable meals are prepared simply and presented beautifully.”) to preparing simple dishes (“A [salad] dressing should enhance the salad’s flavor, not overpower it.”)

I broke the tips down into the following categories: Current, Variety, Simplicity, Learning, Organization, and Sharing. Here’s what stuck with me:

When it comes to eating and preparing food, we should start with what’s current. If we share in the current harvest’s bounty, we have seasonal fresh food. Buying fresh food allows us to have a variety of colors, textures, and nutrients that we don’t normally get from boxed foods. “Variety also contributes to a sense of satisfaction that prevents overeating.” She also writes, “When we eat properly, we feel and look our best – it’s how God designed our bodies to work.” Natural foods are also the simplest to prepare.

The book urges us to continue learning: about nutrition, new recipes and techniques, different tastes, and to use that information to share with others. “Try at least one new recipe a month to help cultivate new tastes.” Additionally we are encouraged to be more efficient by organizing our kitchen, pantry, refrigerator, and recipe box.

Once our kitchen life is organized we can begin to share. We can start by practicing one meal by making it often, until it is mastered. Won’t that be easier when we have company over for dinner? We can also triple the output of our recipe to be more efficient. One meal can be eaten, one can be frozen, and the third can be given to a neighbor or friend. In our experimentation with recipes, we should find something we like to make, and make that our specialty – like cookies for Christmas.

Willits gave me some food for thought through the tips in this book. I wish to leave you with this food for thought: “Eating should be an experience that causes you to not only stop and savor the tastes God has created, but to savor life itself.”… (altro)