Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Yet Another Food Blog

Greetings, fellow food fans!  Welcome to my kitchen.

My goal for this site is simple-- To share my recipes and ideas, to find out what anyone who happens to read this is doing in their kitchen, and basically have fun with food.  I'll be posting food news, food quotes, a lot of stuff from my collection of vintage cookbooks, and maybe the occasional food-related opinion, if it's something I feel strongly about.  

For anyone who doesn't know me, I'm a 45-year-old, married father of teen- aged twins, who got into thrown into the deep-end of the kitchen, and made the best of it. My interest in cooking and food is simply, finding and making dishes that my family and friends will enjoy eating.  

I don't describe myself as a "foodie" because I think that's a term that has too much baggage attached to it.  I'm not really into food trends, or fine-dining, and I don't care for the more judgmental connotations it carries.  To illustrate, let me share some comments about foodies from a 2007 conversation on Yelp! (Some have been edited for brevity and/or language)

“My definition (of foodie) changed because I started noticing people talking about food in a way that was very trendy, much like that of wine tasting, and not exactly indicative of what I was experiencing.  Patrons of restaurants talking about food pairings like they were in the know, but many times talked out their (backsides).  It was more than the comment about a food's MSG content when it did not have one, but it was about preparation or style of certain foods, when it was obviously not the case. Food to me is also very subjective, so I think it is funny when people are highbrow or overly judgmental.  I guess I associate these two attributes with the term foodie, so when I hear foodie, I think of a person who likes to eat and socialize about food as a means to differentiate themselves from the non foodie, but not necessarily for the sake of knowing about or understanding the food itself.” – Kapeli M.

"Nothing wrong with the word foodie.  It's what they do that's so annoying.  They're the hipsters of the food world.  They want to have an opinion but they don't care if it's an informed one, they just like to talk.  Kind of like baseball fans who never actually figure out the game." -- Gil S.

"There is a spectrum of foodies, from the involved food lovers to the crazy food snobs. There should be a second word - just like "Trekkies" and "Trekkers," there could be "Foodies" and "Fooders" - I can't stand the Fooders, mostly because they won't shut up and refuse to eat at taco trucks." -- Andy M.

I bring this up now, so you know what to expect as this blog goes forward.  I'm not here to dump on anyone, I'm here to have fun.  I hope you will, too.




4 comments:

  1. Paul...LOVE your blog! Very funny and easy to read! Thanks also for clearing up the "foodie" def for me. I always wondered what exactly being a foodie means, and have always kind of balked at the idea of calling someone the name. Keep 'em coming my friend, I will always follow your blogs!!

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  2. I like that comment by Gil, "They're the hipsters of the food world." Too funny. I look forward to reading more of your blogs.

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  3. He really did nail it better than I could ever hope to, without being as blunt as the one guy in the discussion who defined foodie as "uneducated trend whore"...

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