This week, for our second installment of Getting To Know You, I present (drum roll, please) Kristin from Iowa Girl Eats!  Like Monica from last week’s feature, Kristin also filled out my brief questionnaire. I am sure you’ll love reading about this adventurous foodie and runner!

1. Tell us a bit about your blog?  How long have you been blogging? How did you come up with the title of your blog?  What are you favorite topics to blog about? Why is this topic important to you?

Hello! My name is Kristin and I live in the great state of Iowa, where I write about eating (mostly) well, running often and traveling far, at IowaGirlEats.com!

I’ve been blogging since March 2009 (wow, it feels much longer than that!) about the three topics I’m most passionate about.

Eating Well: I adore cooking and usually make dinner at home 5-6 nights a week. Crafting a dish with your own two hands, knowing exactly what into it, and trying out new ingredients & recipes is such a joy to me. I love to share the dishes I love with my readers with the hope they’ll feel the same!

Running Often: I follow the 70/30 rule when it comes to eating. 70% healthy, good-for-me eats – 30% wicked, indulgent treats. While running and regular exercise allows me to sometimes tip the scales towards a 60/40 ratio (my favorite!) it’s also a great stress reliever and makes me feel a little bit better about sitting on my butt in an office chair all day. I pretty much run exclusively outdoors when the weather is nice, but enjoy trying different treadmill interval routines in the winter, which I share on my blog, to shake it up a bit!

Travel Far: Some people work to get the latest and greatest gadgets and gizmos – I work so I can pay to travel the world! Life is short and the list of places I want to explore is long. Really, really long! While I’m always down for a relaxing, tropical vacation, my favorite destinations are the ones that I can take time to explore and learn the history behind what I’m seeing and experiencing. I love to learn!

2. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

If I could only read one book for the rest of my life it would be Memoirs of a Geisha. I spent a summer in Japan during college and have thought about the magical, mysterious country almost everyday since. Memoirs tells the fantastic, descriptive (fictional) tale of one of the most respected and successful geisha in all of Japan. I totally feel like I’m in the book every time I read it – which is key to a good read, in my opinion!

The Twilight Series would also do, in a pinch.

3.  What is your greatest pet peeve?

Easy – people who chew their food or gum with their mouth open. Can. Not. Handle. It.

4. What’s your guiltiest guilty pleasure?

Sugar. Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, sugar at any time! I have a wicked sweet tooth that I satisfy with items like Cinnamon Rolls, Ultimate Cookies and Pumpkin Spice Whoopie Pies. A nice romp with the treadmill helps take the “guilty” feeling out of the equation!

6. If our reader’s could only read one of your blog posts, which one should they read and why? Please include the link.

I’m really proud of Iowa – it’s a wonderful, family-friendly state with so much to do, eat and experience! And no, we do not all live on farms.

If your readers could only read one of my blog posts, I’d have to point them to “You Know You’re From Iowa…” It’s about a sweet corn festival my husband and I attended this summer in a small, Iowa town featuring, you guessed it, FREE SWEET CORN! Nothing says Iowa like free corn!

iowagirleats.com/2010/01/24/the-ultimate-cookie-recipe/

Thanks, Kristin, for sharing your answers and awesome pictures with us!

Also, check out some of my favorite posts like, These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: Kitchen Edition, where Kristin shares her must-have kitchen utensils and appliances. I lover her pink Kitchen-Aid mixer! I really enjoyed How to Plan Meals and Grocery Shop, too, because it took me forever to figure out how to manage the stress of shopping for healthy foods and making sure I had everything to create healthy meals, and Kristin sums it up perfectly in this post!

Last but not least, vote for Kristin! She’s a contestant in the Better With Breakstone’s blogger challenge for her 3 holiday-themed dishes!

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