Cold, rainy weekends call for chili cheese nachos. We've had a few cold and rainy weekends lately and after being out and about during the day we've been ready to hibernate for a lazy evening in. These nachos are casual comfort for evenings like this.

How do you define community? I think of it as the connection we have to the people, services, customs, and neighborhoods where we live, work, and play. But to be honest, we take our communities for granted. Or at least I took mine for granted for a long time. In the past 10 years my husband and I have moved four times, spanning thousands of miles....

The first half of this Comfort Food, Redefined series was about creating inner comfort around food; upgrading the way we most intimately interact with food on a daily basis - in our body and our mind. Achieving inner comfort has the power to transform our outer world by giving us the clarity, calmness, and energy to live well and thrive. Don’t believe me?

What’s your decision-making style, come meal or snack time? Are you impulsive, spontaneous, contemplative, indecisive, or obsessive? We all fall somewhere along this spectrum. In fact, it’s been proven that our emotions, not our knowledge about food and nutrition, have the greatest impact on our behavior and choices. But I think you’ll agree with me that allowing boredom or stress to guide our food choices doesn’t usually work in our favor. 

Fed for comfort is eating well so we live with comfort in our bodies. And what’s more comforting than finding the foods we love and that love us back?

But what is best for our bodies? There’s an obesity epidemic in the Western world, so some may argue we clearly don’t know what to eat. But I argue we have a “seeking” epidemic just as rampant as obesity that misplaces our energy and focus. 

The New Year; it can be motivating and exciting, but if you’re like me, you might also feel anxious returning to the reality of normal routine after a period of relaxed, indulgent days. It feels like there’s no choice but to leave the comforts of the season behind in order to be productive and balanced again – as if we can’t have both at once. But this all-or-nothing mentality is not fair logic.