By Way of Introduction: Part I, Food

This is something that has been brewing in the back of my mind for some time, and an idea that I've kicked around for months. What it boils down to is this: My friends are tired of listening to me ramble about food, or go off on tirades about women's rights and the related ills of society. So I'm putting them here, world, and you can either read them or not. I'll freely admit I don't have a particularly picky palate or anything, just a love of food. Eating it, making it, sharing it with others. Because food is, among other things, one of the mainstays of our culture. For generations, people have used food, and the table, and the habits and customs surrounding said, as a microcosm of our world as a whole. Which, when you think about the way people (at least in the Western world) tend to approach food, is kind of scary. We have some really messed up ways of interacting with food. Which is a fuel-the way we keep ourselves, going. It's also an experience- the act of sitting or standing and who is present and why and how during the consumption of food. And it is (or can be) a very sensual pleasure- the actual eating, how food looks, tastes, and behaves on our plates, in our mouths, in our stomachs.

All of which doesn't even begin to discuss the preparation of food, what we make and why and how. With whom and for what. Does it ruin a carfully coordinated multi-course event of flavor if we eat off of mis-matched plates (or-heaven forfend- with our plates balanced on our laps)? Is my pie any less delicious because I like to listen to old Metallica when I bake? And then there's who does the cooking in our culture. After all, this is yet another food blog by some girl with some free time on her hands and a kitchen. While most of the professional chefs in this nation are men. Which gets into the second topic of this blog, and will be addressed in part II of this introduction. Although, clearly, the posts as a whole will not be subdivided in this manner regularly. I find I can switch back and forth easily. And do, often without pause for breath.

I hope that the food portion of this becomes not just recipes, but actually how I go about making and deciding to make things, the whys behind not just the making of this particular dish, but what different kinds of food mean to me. And by mean to me, I mean not only what prompts the dish to be important to me, but most importantly, how it tastes. I'm sure there will be comments on restaurants and dishes friends make on here as well, but as I barely qualify as middle class- don't, in fact, if only my college debt was considered a factor by the government- most of what I consume, I make myself. For varying degrees of the word "make." Which is another rant in itself.

And now I must go make dinner.