Where Have I Been? What Have I Been Doing? Is This Still a Food Blog?
Ξ May 29th, 2008 | → 2 Comments | ∇ A Bit About Me, Blogging |
Let’s discuss over a plate of moules frites (mussels and french fries):
First of all I just got back from France where I spent two weeks.
Well, technically we arrived in London (where we were supposed to stay but Wade and my friend left us high and dry) but because dollars are fifty pence there, we decided to keep it real in Paris where the dollar is a wee bit stronger.
(We did have some good food in London, this here’s the best sausage I’ve ever had in a bun on a bridge over the Thames:
So Wade and went to Paris with a brief trip to Germany (in the sticks near Trier). It was so much more than I could ever write down in the course of an afternoon. Highlight? Um, well, just waking up in Paris and ordering une noisette (an espresso with a drop of cream) was pretty rad. I loved the city…But a lot of time has passed since I have updated this site… since I cracked open my chin here’s a run down of my last few months:
- Had to get my computer keyboard replaced (amongst a flurry of paper writing for school)
- Moved in with Justin two blocks away from apartment
- Helped Wade move into my old apartment
- (All this amongst a flurry of paper writing)
- Prepared for Europe
- Had to get all my big 15 page papers done a week early so I could take off for Europe the last day of class
- Had to study for finals that last week I was handing in all the papers so I could take off for Europe
- Turns out the person Wade and I were counting on for lodging the length of the trip bailed on us and moved to New York without telling us or planning to until we called her… had to scramble for hostels and stuff (during studying and paper writing), doubling our trip cost (am I bitter? I’m just glad I had a fantastic time in Paris.)
So now I’m back and now I should be blogging right?
Well, a couple of other things happened since I wrote last. I’m pretty disillusioned with the “food world” and the world of writing about it. A lot of little things have added up and I’m not sure what I think about food blogs anymore. I’m kind of sick of looking at perfect pictures of food and hearing the same exact stories and insights over and over (Isn’t this egg beautiful? I can’t believe the asparagus I found!). It probably is merely because I research food blogs day in and out and it gets tiring and repetitive.
As for this blog, I tried out the typical food blog format, but I despise having to remember my camera and take pictures of steps. I want to cook dammit, not figure out good shots. Plus, I don’t like feeling like I have to write down all of my ingredients or where I got the recipe. And there is no way I’m going to photograph every meal that I eat in a restaurant. (The only pictures of food I took in Europe are the two I have posted here.) I think in some ways food blogs only perpetuate the problems inherent in the atomization of America, highlighting the individual (I made this! *camera flash*) much more than the actual experience of eating (who writes about the actual dinner conversation instead of the particulars of the pasta salad?).
I’m not sure where these ideas will take this blog, but hopefully they will come to be more fleshed out and coherent as opposed to a grumpy rambling.
Well, les moules frites sont fini! (sp? Je pense c’est correct.) The mussels are finished and I must be on my way for now. Have you noticed any tiresome replications amongst food blogs? What do you look for in a food blog anyway? Recipes? Pretty pictures? Why do you think food blogs are so popular? If you need proof, here’s a basic list:
a fridge full of food, a la carte, A La Cuisine!, A Perfect Pear, Accidental Hedonist, Algerian Cuisine, Amuse Bouche, An Obsession with Food, AnneCuisine, Appetites, At Our Table, baking beast, bakingsheet, Becks & Posh, bread coffee chocolate yoga, Butter Pig, cafe et chocolat, Chef Paz, chez pim, Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once, Cooking by COQCO, Cooking with Miklb, Cooking with The Headhunter, CookSister, Cucina Testa Rossa, Cuisine Quotidienne, David Lebovitz, Daydream delicious…, Dispensing Happiness, Eating Around, Elizabeth Ridings’ Recipes, feeding dexygus seconds, FOOD BEAM, Franziska’s Kitchen, French Food-Culture, French Foodie in the City, French Kitchen in America, Fresh Approach Cooking, Gluten-Free Girl, Group Recipes - Blogs, Harriett’s Tomato, I HEART BACON, In Search of Dessert, Joe Pastry, Kitchen Chick, kitchenmage, KUIDAORE, La tartine gourmande, lacrime e briciole, Lucullian delights, Madailein: The Kitchen Witch, Mommy Cooks, Mona’s Apple, Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea, My French Cuisine, New Orleans Cuisine, NOLA Cuisine, Nordljus, Offal Good, Oswego Tea, Paris Breakfasts, Petit Careme, pinch and a dash, reluctant housewife, Rosa’s Yummy Yums, Seattle Bon Vivant, Seriously Good, Simply Recipes, Someones In the Kitchen with Daddy, Sometimes I Cook, Soup Song, Stephencooks, sweet pleasure : plaisir sucre, tableau vivante, The Candied Quince, The Domestic Goddess, The Edible Garden, The Omnivorous Egg, the passionate cook, The Pilgrim’s Pots and Pans, The Redneck Gourmet, The Thorngrove Table, The Ulterior Epicure, The Well Fed Network, Tomatilla!, Top 10 Sources, Zen in the Kitchen
This is a list of merely 100 from last year… and there are a lot more super good ones that aren’t in this list. But you get the idea…. why the clusterf**k of writing about food? (I know my idea, but I’m interested in yours.)