photography query

I had a photo journalism class in college... and a photography project in 4-H that I'm not entirely sure I ever finished. Really, the only things I remember from the later was the "trick photography" section where I learned how to put my friends Jenny and Megan in a jar. (Jar and hand close-up, friend far away in back ground pretending to squirm.) In short, I am no photographer. But I want to take nice pictures of my food for you and I was kind of disappointed with my pictures from Costa Rica. : / Blargh. I probably won't be buying a camera anytime soon, but I want to start drooling. I want my next camera to last me. I want it to take pictures of fast movin' kids and still faces in low light. I'd rather delay the satisfaction of a zoom lens so that I can afford more image quality now in a body that I can build on. It doesn't need to be top of the line, but it needs to produce images that can be cropped and blown-up to an 8x10 for printing. 

Right now, I'm mostly using my iphone. As you can see from my previous post, most of the pictures are kind of blurry. With the phone, I don't have any control over exposure or focal length. I have a little camera that I took to Costa Rica that has some ability to change f-stops, but not very many. It would undoubtedly do a better job on the food shots, and now that I'm getting settled in, I'll start using it. But the controls are so little and the screen so tiny that you can't really gauge the differences between settings until you download the images onto your computer which is no good for vacays.  

My previously mentioned friend Jenny now lives far away and occasionally graces me with b-e-a-utiful pictures of my flower girl and other subjects. (If you're reading this, Jen, more please!) She has really practiced- you can tell. Her pictures have gone from good to wow over the past couple of years. So I asked her, "what kind of camera do you have?"

She responded, "this one, but I suggest a Canon Rebel with 50mm 1.8 lens, because it's cheaper and it takes good pictures." Due to the quick response, I suspect my friend has fielded this question before. It's no wonder she's been asked with pictures like hers. 

Does anyone else have any suggestions? If you upgraded to a fancy shmancy camera, do you feel like it was worth it or are you thinking of selling it on craigslist?