December 2021: Beginning
It is December 2021, and I’m making holiday cookies, writing my goals for 2022 and repeatedly changing my plans to accommodate the whims of the latest Coronavirus variant.
I’m also starting a blog. I think the days of writing a blog just for the sake of writing a blog might be, mostly, behind us. Podcasts and Tik Tok videos seem more the thing, but I’ve wanted to write a blog since 2009 when the movie Julie & Julia came out. I loved that movie. I heard many people say that the Julia Child parts were the good ones and weren’t Amy Adams’ Julie Powell sections so lacking? Wasn’t she kind of annoying? No, she was not. She was wonderful, and she was the best part. Here’s a woman who loved to cook and who made a decision to cook all 524 recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year, and then blog about it. Could anyone be cooler?
I’ve had a number of ideas for blogs over the years. The closest I came to creating one was in the winter of 2020 when I decided to try something new every week and write about the experiences. That plan lasted about two weeks before SARS-COV-2 came along and life became the art of finding meaning in a world where every day seemed the same.
And then I watched a documentary called First We Eat. Suzanne Crocker, a Canadian filmmaker, convinces her family to eat only food they can source locally, nothing from a supermarket. It’s a beautiful film and an amazing feat—they have to grow, hunt, or make their own food, or collect from their neighbors. That means a lot of standard cooking elements like white granulated sugar, table salt, and other non-local produce are strictly off-limits. They make their own butter. They hunt for moose. Suzanne’s high blood pressure returns to normal levels. The filmmaker’s impetus to make the documentary came after a road closure cut off food to the local grocery store and she realized how tenuous and non-sustainable her dependence on the global food network was. It’s a film about connection to the land and strength in adversity. And she learns to cook. I was enthralled but unwilling to take it to her level of dedication. But I could take steps in her direction. What if I cooked my food from just the basic ingredients? It would be more healthy and bring me closer to understanding what it takes to bring a meal to the table.
So here I am at the end of 2021. I’ve slowly added a few things to my repertoire. I make tomato sauces from the tomatoes. I mix my own mayonnaise. Pies from scratch are somewhat routine. It’s been fun, but I need to boost the energy and sense of urgency. I’m putting a 2022 goal in place to cook everything next year from scratch. However…
“Nature provides exceptions to every rule.”
— Margaret Fuller
And I do have a few exceptions:
I subscribe to a bakery service and it’s too darn good to stop (more on this next month).
I can finish up any prepared foods already in the house because throwing out food is bad, bad, bad.
I will do take-out food every now and then. I mean, c’mon.
I can eat food that’s been gifted to me.
But NO MORE EXCEPTIONS. I’m putting my foot down.
If you’re still reading this, you’re probably a family member or one of my six friends. I’m not expecting this blog to take over the world or become an overnight sensation. But I do hope that I’ll learn a thing or two about cooking and that I’ll be able to pass something along to you. It takes a certain amount of self-absorption to write a blog (or as Julie Powell says, “But what do you think a blog is? It's me, me, me day after day.”). I hope you’ll forgive my narcissism as I undertake this journey into the world of unprepared food. Let’s see what happens…
