I am 26 years old, and I struggle in New York City.
I do not have cloth napkins. I think napkin rings are absurd.
For every scarlet rhubarb tart I bake to match my $10-apiece IKEA chairs, there are eight or ten lean meals of instant ramen and poached eggs.
I really do brunoise and julienne things for a dish sometimes (quite recently slicing my pinky in the process), and then I wrap it up, take it to the party, and forget about it.
Out of respect for my guests, who want their food hot and their host engaged, I do not photograph my occasional, pornographic meals of asiago baskets, double-drizzled entree stacks or composed dessert plates with caramel sculptures and loose quenelles. Even if I did want to interrupt the pleasant flow of a dinner to take dewy, prurient macros of restaurant-style food, my almost unused digital SLR has been in mysterious repairs for ONE MONTH. [Update: typing this rant worked me into such a fury that I called up the repair centre, to be told that my Nikon was boxed up and put in the mail just this morning! I should be reunited with my baby by Thursday at the very latest.]
I really don’t think my life is picturesque enough for a food blog. In my secret, professional life, I reposition oregano leaves with tweezers and dress half-raw potatoes so that a photographer can get a breathtaking, 22-megapixel shot of an inedible picnic by a babbling brook. On a Saturday night with my boyfriend, lengths of paper towels serve as napkins. We’ve opened the front door to let the smoke out, and I get up in the middle of the meal to microwave the tepid vegetables that I’ve mistimed.
There are beautiful moments, though. Nothing very groundbreaking. But when you griddle asparagus, portobellos and vine tomatoes (a feminine concession in a beer and porterhouse dinner) and you leave the leftovers in the fridge over the weekend, a luscious, solitary lunch emerges–with a little help from an unassuming beige jar of garlic and artichoke cream (Crema di Carciofi e Aglio). You smash the warmed tomatoes into cavatelli, snip the griddle-striped spears into bite-sized pieces, and feel like your cranky self is entitled to a food blog after all. Even if it was a dish an idiot could have made. As long as it PHOTOGRAPHS WELL.
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COMMENTS / 2 COMMENTS
It’s so true that some of the most satisfying, delicious, and comforting dishes are also the ugliest. There are so many amazing meals I’ve had at home or out that only exist in memory now, because lighting was bad, or there was no way that braise or stir-fry would look good to in a photograph, to anyone who wasn’t smelling the luscious aromas.AppetiteforChina added this comment on Apr 28 08 at 9:05 pm
And you don’t always need amazing Donna Hay-type photos for a food blog (though the cavatelli does look delicious.) You just need the passion to write obsessively about food, which is already evident in your entries.
This post really made me giggle. The only cloth napkins I own are for photo props and for little slipcovers I made for the backs of my dining room chairs! We, too, use paper towels, there’s often smoke filling my kitchen, and we’re always re-heating something or other–or, more often, just gobbling whatever it is cold.Amanda added this comment on May 24 08 at 8:46 am
Laziness is my motivator. And realism–because real life is the occasional burned food and ugly (though delicious) bowl of something-or-other.
Your photos always look delicious, and your writing shows your love for the food, that’s for sure.
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