How beautiful are golden beets?

Sometimes in women’s magazines the following question is posed; “what do you eat for dinner when you are all by yourself? Cereal while standing in the kitchen? Cookies?”
For me it’s beets.

Or sweet potatoes. Or winter squash.
They are usually just steamed and topped with a spray of olive oil and some herb salt.
Tate would eat this but he doesn’t derive the same pleasure from a bowl of bright, starchy vegetables as I do. He gets that from rice.
In fact, if Tate’s answer to the same question would probably be “a huge bowl of brown rice and melted cheese”. Simple pleasures.
Yesterday afternoon I had the {simple} pleasure of participating in Cville Connect‘s inaugural Food Bloggers Podcast.
This ’round-table’ discussion is the brainchild of Cville Connect’s founder, Mike Bisceglia, a total foodie disguised as a sportscaster. The premise was simple; he wanted to get local food bloggers together on one couch and talk food!

{photo taken by Mike on Kath‘s phone}
I was honored to be invited to join this group of talented ladies. The panel included myself, Kath from Kath Eats Real Food, Andrea from Bella Eats and Beyond the Flavor, and Jenée from Diner of Cville.
When I was first asked to participate I thought it sounded like fun. As the time drew closer to actually going on the mic I started to get really nervous. What if I was a totally inarticulate, blabbering mess? I’ve never done a lot of public speaking, unless you count teaching. I can lead 60 people through a workout but the idea of being put on the spot and expected to speak intelligently and concisely kind of terrifies me. I’m a listener in general. I enjoy time to digest my thoughts before they leave my head. Luckily the podcast will be edited because I stalled out at least once, my random ramblings running their course.
The podcast will be out on Monday and unless griped by total insecurity I will share a link to it.
Any good plans for the weekend?
I have to put up a trellis before my asparagus beans get out of control. Have you grown these crazy guys before? I’m ridiculously excited about them. Each green bean grows to be over a foot long!
My mom is coming over too. She lives two hours away and has planned a visit around attending a Zumba certification on Sunday here in the ‘ville.