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Posts Tagged ‘food’

I posted a comment on Facebook, witch was followed up by a note including a recipe, which reminded me of an old blog I once knew.

My second attempt at blogging, many (three?) years ago, was a personal journey into the world of food.  What I thought I could add to the din of semi-professional home chefs and true gourmands, I couldn’t say.  I think I was still very unsettled about my place in the kidlit world and was feeling like I needed to start closer to home before I started spouting off about books and things.

I didn’t really have much use for the old blog once I dumped it back in June of 07 and nearly wped it from the face of the earth.  I decided to see what would happen if I left it there, how soon it would be before it didn’t get any visits and I’m still waiting.  Sure, maybe it gets only four hits a day on average, but what they say about things being forever on the internet is true!

Anyway, last December (that would December 07) I landed a new computer (thanks, Suze!) and transfered my life from one drive to the other.  Only in the process I managed to totally erase all my recipes and a good deal of my reviews for The Horn Book Guide to date.  The reviews I could live with because I had printed copies, but the recipes, the recipes…

Every once in a while I’ll go “You know what I haven’t made in a long time?”  and then I’ll go looking for the recipe and realize it was among the lost.  Lost and gone forever.

Bu a small fraction of them survived… on the internet!  Yup, occasionally I would crow about a particular recipe that worked out well, among all sorts of food related nonsense and musings, on the old blog.  As a result about once a month I go back to the old site just to make sure I didn’t miss a recipe, or to find the details of a particular dish I once memorized and suddenly doubted.  Since the thing won’t die, and is still somewhat useful (and occasioanlly amusing) I decided today rather than keep it hidden that I might as well own up and include the link.  It’s just to the left, under “windows” where I link to my book review blog.

And about the title.  The correct assumption is the refernece to Paul Simon’s song of the same name.  My feeling was that cooking was one of those subjective arts where what one person considers food of the gods (like toasty dogs) might, to another, seem very low rent. Fancy restaurants don’t impress me because they are spending a lot of energy (and my money) drawing attention to the food in a way that makes it seem like magic when it isn’t.  You want to see magic?  Watch me make chocolate disappear.

Like it says, it’s just another window into my world. Feel free to poke around.

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I had one of those moments where I doubted myself as a writer today.

No, it wasn’t insecurity, it was a question of calling. I was on my way home from the store today with a half tonne of groceries whose future included a mango salsa and guacamole. Yes, I know it’s December Eve and mangoes and avocados aren’t to be had without a price. Still, I make these things well, and seeing as we’re having a small army into our small apartment (I keep thinking it’s around 60 people but it’s probably closer to 25 or so) it fell to me to provide some of the edible entertainment. It’s the least I can do since I’ll have the girls out and about with me while Suze plays hostess.

It’s a long story. The parents of sixth graders are pulling together a support group to help us all get through the tween years, and perhaps beyond. The meeting places rotate and Suze volunteered when someone else fell through. Better to get our turn out of the way up front, I guess.

Fortunately others are bringing other food and drink because having to actually feed a large crowd a week after Thanksgiving seemed a bit daunting. But at Thanksgiving I was asked to make stuffing for a platoon of a family gathering, followed up the next night with a double-family sized portion of what is becoming my famed macaroni and five cheese.

It was while riding my bike home in the near-freeze that my brain actually tripped and wondered if I hadn’t missed my calling in a kitchen. Do I have a talent for it or just an affinity? I do enjoy food, and there’s something meditative about the process (when I have time), and I like hunting down the slightly unusual recipe. And because I’m a guy that makes me slightly unusual. And it makes me wonder if I should have considered a different path instead of writing.

And then I start in the kitchen and I think “I can do this on small scale, and on a larger scale every once in a while, but not every day; writing I could do every day.”

Still…

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