Celeste's Larder is Open

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity." ~Voltaire

Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes,
and green beer from the Library
Sports Grille & Brewery, St. Patrick's
Day, 2011

Like Voltaire says, we all need food, from the baby needing breast milk to the oldest person in the world.  All races, all cultures, all religions.  Everyone needs to eat or they will die.  Food feeds our soul as much as our body.  Food is part of our life.  Food is our life.

But food isn't just a necessity, it can be a pleasure.  If food was just for nourishment, we would just have the instinct to eat, and no taste buds, or just taste buds designed to warn us away from poisons and spoiled food.  Our nose would just warn us of things to avoid or to go after something.  But both these senses don't just bring information, they bring pleasure.  The same is true for all our senses.  Our very body is designed to enjoy the world we're in.  And part of that world, part that our body and nervous system is specifically designed to enjoy, is food.

There are of course bad sides of this.  Like anything we enjoy, food can be taken to an extreme.  People use food to fill other voids in their lives.  People use food to hide from other things.  Food can be an addiction, or it can be a disorder.  Or both.  Eating disorders are rampant in the the United States, anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating being the most common.  Food and eating can be abused.  Like anything.

So, there's good and there's bad with food and eating.  It's something to respect.

I love to write about my thoughts, especially in a blog setting, where I can share them with people, and hopefully hear the thoughts of others.  And I love food, both eating it and cooking it.  So I figured I'd start a blog about food.  And hence, Celeste's Larder is open.

~Bethany