What has gotten into me?

I'd call it a bug if I thought it would pass rather quickly, but this cooking thing... geesh!

Wanna know how I spent my morning? That all-too-brief time between getting out of bed, and having the rest of the family get out of bed? Sometimes I get 30 minutes, sometimes I get lucky and have an hour or so on a day like today (meaning, a No School day) or sometimes its about 30 seconds, as the sound of my feet on the stairs magically awakens all other breathing members of my family, with the notable exception of my husband. These are precious, quiet moments. I pour myself some coffee and when the weather promises to not melt me within 2 minutes, I go outside to enjoy the admittedly lovely desert morning.

Today, I poured my coffee, grabbed an armload of cookbooks, a pad, and a pen and then proceeded to pour myself all over their pages. Some are just OK. My favorite today is The Barefoot Contessa's book on entertaining simply. I must have marked 15 pages, at least.

Some notable favorites were versions of sweet potato fries, something called Confetti Corn, a fantastic looking rolled-turkey breast, some mustard cream sauce slathered fish recipes... I got inspired and motivated!! *(Ok, and HUNGRY, too!)

Now I want to start cooking for Thanksgiving. Yes.. I realize Thanksgiving is nearly 8 weeks away. Which then lends to my question "What has gotten into me?" There is something extremely gratifying in the idea, and then in the execution, of making from scratch Thanksgiving dinner, and heck, just your basic every-night dinner, too. This is unlike me. I've been utterly content to just toss something edible on the table for YEARS now. Hmmm...

I quelled my desire to MAKE something from that book by cooking up a nice big batch of French Toast for the family. I even enjoyed a near-perfect batter-to-bread ratio!!

Now off to watch Parker hopefully win his baseball game, and then to cheer for the Trojans as they make dog-food out of Washington.