Recipes - Why

When I started all this blogging stuff, the only thing I knew was that multi-dimensional blogs are more interesting. Unfortunately, I am a uni-dimensional person. (Well, I like tennis, but that doesn't really make good reading. It's boring enough to watch it, perish the thought of reading much of it.) Anyway, I put up a recipe about 3 moons ago. (It actually got a comment! One might think I would repeat the process, but I'm not that creative.)

I am going to post some recipes over the next few days.

No, I have not suddenly decided to try being an interesting person. I just promised that I would contribute to the church cookbook, and figured I would type them up here.

So, why contribute to a cookbook? Especially since I am a plain and simple batchelor cook?

Well, food means a LOT to me. Most people don't think much about food, and maybe I don't either, but when I do think about it it's from way down deep in my soul. My ex-wife cooks for the kids 3 nights a week. Bully for her, but when she sends me leftovers, it turns my stomach to think of eating them. They die in the fridge ('cause the kids just don't do leftovers.) It's not bitterness at work there. Really. Food means love to me. When there's no love, the food is a lie.

When I get to cook for the kids, I cook differently than I cook for myself too. For them, I really want to cook something cool and attractive. For myself, I want to cook something that will last two nights. I'm afraid I don't have the talent to succeed for the kids the way I wish I could, but I really do try.

Personally, I love food that plops.

Bill came up with that one, and it fits me to a "T". Cook me something dainty and beautiful, and you had best cook 5 of them. All the evidence points to me having been under-nourished as a kid. My mom just did not believe me when I said I was hungry, so I quit saying it. In 9 weeks of army basic training at the age of 21, while everyone else was losing weight, I put on 20 pounds. I had never gotten to eat so much food before, and it was a glorious, glorious thing to me.

So to this day, when it comes to a meal, size matters.

As to philosophy of food, mine is simple. If they ate it 6000 years ago, I will eat it today. If they invented it during the industrial revolution, then it is a poison. Home-pickled raw beef - no problem. JIF peanut butter - death in a jar. Fermenting breads, grains, meats, whatever until they have a life of their own - bring it on. Margarine - drives me into a corner of the kitchen snivelling and begging for my life. Don't make me eat it! And don't start me on soy products, high fructose corn syrup, or anything "diet."

So anyway, if the post begins with the word, "Recipes," you'll know you're not missing much as you click away. :-)