Jun 21 Some Comfort Food for Thought

So, as a few people may have noticed, I’ve been more than a little neglectful of my blog over the last several months. Okay, truthfully, I haven’t so much as touched my blog in that time. There are a few reasons, but really it boils down to a handful of changes in my life that have kept me away.

In February I moved to a new apartment in the city. I love my new place. The location is better and the rent is delightfully affordable. Yes, it does still have a kitchen, but, as I imagine nearly anyone can attest, the process of moving eats up a tremendous amount of time. First you have to pack everything up at the old place, and then you have to unpack and arrange it all in the new one. It was doubly involved for me this time around, since I moved about half my belongings into storage so as to fit in my new, much smaller living quarters.  All of that consumes not only the spare hours of the day, but, for at least several days, involves packing most to all of your kitchen away in boxes, making cooking a near impossibility.

As so often seems to happen, about the time I was getting myself situated in the new location, something else came along. In my case, work became insanely busy. By about April I realized that after five long and very overworked years of doing freelance and running a small business, I’d reached the breaking point. Many of you in San Francisco know that I was becoming burnt out and thinking seriously about what to do next even before April, but that was really when I really hit the pivotal moment of needing to take some serious action.

So, I cut my workload back to a handful of hours a week. The plan now is to actually relax for a while. Not just for a few weeks or a month, but for many months. That began in May. In the interim, I’ve relaxed a lot, caught up on some sleep, had a couple fun trips outside the city, actually lived a little, and even done some cooking. I think some part of me knew I would probably need about a month of letting it all go to get back to a place where I could hold something resembling a schedule or even enjoy doing many of the things I would normally do. Now I think I’m ready to start writing about the food I cook again.

There’s nothing quite like a hiatus, however, to get a little perspective. I wasn’t quite sure that going back to writing exactly how I had been was what I wanted, and even if I decided to go that route, what on earth would I begin with to kick off a new series of blog entries? I decided this called for some comfort food. I think that comfort food is not only something that makes us feel good when we eat it, but is often food that we are most familiar with preparing. It is the food we make with an adept hand, and, as such, yields very different results than when we’re trying something new. Making some comfort food would allow me to toss aside cookbooks and notes. I could cook unrestrained and confidently, and my mind would have some space to contemplate what I’d like to do with all this as I worked.

I decided I was in the mood for fried chicken. So, I set about making buttermilk fried chicken, mashed potatoes, garlicky turnip greens, quick pickled cucumber, and a fresh cherry pie for good measure. Food is really not the same eaten alone, so I invited a couple friends over to join me. Either we were starving, or the food was just short of amazing, if I do say so myself. It’s a little hard to pat yourself on the back for making a delicious meal and keep a straight face, but I don’t think it was just wishful thinking on my part to say dinner was good. The only thing left worth keeping at the end of that meal was a half a piece of chicken, a single heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes, and half a cherry pie. Everything else we devoured.

The remaining question following all the food, though, is what conclusions I reached about the blog. To date, the format of the site has really been for me to provide a detailed set of instructions and measured ingredients for something I prepared. Interwoven in the instructions may occasionally be a narrative about how that food has affected me or is associated with something happening in my life. In many ways, I think that narrative is almost more important, and if I were to articulate a set of goals for my writing here, it would be to share what I am doing with others and, as much as is feasible, to pass on how I think about food and its preparation, because I believe I have a distinct point of view to contribute.

As a format, then, I believe the blog as it exists until now is too limiting, too tedious, and too focused on details that are less important. I think I will try to focus more on how the foods I’m making are connected to me and what my broader thoughts about them are. That means I may omit or significantly reduce the preparation instructions (potentially just summarizing what I think is important to take away).

I’m not sure that I yet have a clear picture of what I want to communicate or even that I have it quite right yet. Given that, I do feel that proving a way for the few people who read what I put down here to give some feedback is important. I’ve therefore added comments to the blog and set up a related Facebook page as a means for people to follow along and interact more directly. If I omit the recipe or don’t provide enough detail for something I’ve prepared, and you’d like the full instructions, I’ll be happy to provide it should anyone ask. I just want to make sure I’m focusing my energy on the part that’s actually going to be useful for people. I have a backlog of things I’ve made but haven’t written about and plenty of new things I’d like to whip up, so check back soon for more!