Spring is my season of inspiration. My chaotic fall and winter scheduling slows down, and my calendar is wiped clean from many obligations that keep my home running more in a state of bedlam than the beauty I so desire.

These past few months, I’ve spent so many days just barely keeping my head above water that these last few weeks have been filled with joy as I have dipped my toes into the creative waters that were patiently waiting for me.

I’ve actually had a few “lazy” days filled with hours of reading cookbooks. I had forgotten the simple, relaxing pleasure that gives to me, and realized that is something that has been stolen from me in our Pinterest Perfect world. My kitchen inspiration began when I found a Hidden Treasure stuck in between some jelly stained cookbook pages, and has just continued from there.

As I brainstorm ideas, recipes and my goals for my new Ten Minute Dinners site (yay), I want it to be a place on the web where women come to find quick, meal ideas, but more than that, a place to be encouraged in the kitchen. A place the inspires practical and tangible inspiration. A place that gives you time saving tips, so that you can spend more time connecting around the dinner table. Hopefully, Balancing Beauty and Bedlam also communicates that same message, but Ten Minute Dinners will just be a  more defined place.

I encourage you to read this quote that inspired me this past week.  Right now on my night stand, the ten cookbooks I just showed on Saturday’s Thrifty Treasures are taking me back in time. Some of these cookbooks go back generations and they are inspiring me to see the slice of the beauty that can be found when we look at our meal making as our art. Even if that meal making only take ten minutes of prep time, it’s an act that is more than just the food.

“Cookbooks are not just for cooking…cookbooks are for inspiration, for lifting the spirit and freeing the mind, for brightening your outlook as well as your parties and table conversations…for the understanding of people and places, for the revelation of the past and for the interpretation of the present…for culture, education, for inviting the soul, reliving memories, reliving experiences. Cookbooks, like poetry, are for the intensification of precious moments. Where except in cookbooks and in lyrics, does one find so much emotion distilled, charted and recollected in tranquility.”

“How, Where and Why to Read a Cookbook”  House Beautiful, February 1957

Have you been inspired in the kitchen at all lately?

It might not have been from a cookbook like me. It might have been by someone else or a story or even a “pin.” We’d really love to read about it in the comments.

If you are in a rut, like I have been too often, I pray today will be a day of  fresh inspiration and encouragement.

(Because the hard thing about meal making is just when you’ve spent time feeding them breakfast, lunch, and cleaning up, they ask what’s for dinner. It’s such a vicious cycle, but we’re all in it together. 😉 )

So what are you serving up for Tasty Tuesday today?
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