Dear Readers,
The graph that shows me how many people have visited my blog is starting to look like a dying heart beat Hopefully that is not a metaphor for my blog dying. This blog is the one I have posted the most on, the one I have spent the most time on, and sometimes the one I like the most. So hopefully I comes back tonight. Knock on wood for me.
Tonight after watching two hours of Anthony Bourdian on the Travel Channel I am feeling inspired to blog. If you don't know this you obviously don't read my blog enough, I am in culinary school. I love food. Food has always been a central point in my life. The kitchen has always been a warm inviting place. As a kid I remember sitting on the floor of the kitchen and playing with tubberware instead of the normal kid toys in my room. I have always loved eating, and if you know me it shows. Food is my life.
Recently I have been thinking about my favorite foods. My comfort foods. The food that brings me back to a different time and place. Mostly happy places. I have never had the most acquired taste in food. To be truthfully honest I prefer my cookies, biscuits, pie crust, and frosting made with butter-flavored Crisco. I enjoy eating Hostess snacks. Meatloaf is one of my favorite foods. I eat Ramen. I eat minute rice. I eat way to much canned soup. And I like it all. Like I said my taste is not fancy.
Sure I like a good steak. I would eat snails everyday if I had the choice. Bread and olive oil was pretty much all I ate last week. Somehow though I don't prefer that to my meatloaf, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes. That is the food I was raised on. That is the food I live for. I live for the warm cookies coming off the pan. I live for the box cake mix my mom would make on my birthday. Those foods show up in my memory.
I have started to wonder why me, a culinary student, would rather eat meatloaf then steak tartar. And after listen to my chef talk and talk and talk I think I have a very good idea. Those were the foods I was raised on. Those foods shaped my childhood. Countless times I sat on the kitchen floor and watched my mother make cookies from memory. At a very young age she taught me how to make these cookies. Those memories are happy ones. Now that I am away form my mom, and don't have the opportunity to get hug when I need one or have a meaningful conversation face to face those cookies feel like the best bear hug ever. While eating a zinger I can flash back to the wonderful younger days what my siblings and I would tag along grocery shopping and my om would by us treat just to shut us up.
Those memories are what pushed me to go to culinary school. I could not imagine my life without food. I could not imagine my life without THAT food.
So people can say all they want about my love for Orange Dream Bars (the only food that has moved me to tears), meatloaf, green bean casserole, butter flavored Crisco, box cake mix, and Ramen noodles. It won't phase. That food was special to me then, and it is still special to me now. I cannot wait till I see my family again and we sit down for a good family meal.
I could take a turn now and encourage you to find the thing you live for, but I am gonna skip all that shit. You have heard that countless times. You have been told from a young age to do what you love. You know that by know. What I really want you to do is think back. Try and remember the food you grandma made for you. Try and remember your favorite Christmas cookie out on the table at the holiday get-togethers. Try and remember the special snack from the store, the midnight binge of cold roast with the fridge door open, the birthday meals of years past, the picnic in your neighborhood park.
Plain and simple food is important. You really can't live without it (no matter how hard you try fashion models). Food shapes you just like the movies you see, the tv you watch, the books you read, and the people you spend time with. So go out there dear readers and find what food is important to you. Get the recipe from your great Grandma before she kicks the bucket. Talk to your mom about the cake she made when you were younger. And if you prefer store bought don't feel bad about grabbing that bow of Ho-Ho's off the shelf. Be proud of your food. Live for the shit because God knows you can't live with out it.
Your always hungry blogger,
Lindsey
