we now interrupt our regularly scheduled program...

Or, rather, not regularly scheduled. Not anymore. I did think, il etait une fois, that food blogs were fun. I liked learning recipes from others, seeing where they'd gone wrong, where they'd gone right -- which recipes were worth their weight in saffron, which were a steaming bucket of poo. After a while, I even thought that writing a food blog would be fun. After all, the gradual maturation of my time in the kitchen felt noteworthy, somehow. As I tried ever more complicated and ever more simple recipes, as I began ditching recipes all together -- look ma, no hands! -- it felt good to share. It felt like happiness, lightness. But now, truly, it seems immeasurable egotistical. Yes, I made a lovely osso buco with citrus gremolata the other weekend. Does anyone care? Unless you were at the table, probably not. There's probably a post in there about how once-abandoned cuts of meat that should be dirt cheap -- peasant cuts -- are now absurdly expensive, thanks to our factory farming. But, really, who hasn't figured that out by now? We roasted a chicken from the market, made pretty chanterelle custards, apple-cider ice-cream the next night. I could've told you how I found the custards equally lovely to the quiches I've been turning out, but minus the time consuming process of blind baking a crust. So what? It's pasta weather, gourd weather, and I've been doing my best by them: oven roasted, filling out i ravioli. Smashed potatoes and carrots, homemade sausages -- easy comfort foods. Is this any surprise to anyone? It's November 3rd, the tomatoes are all gone and the kale has settled itself in comfortably. I live in a bubble but who isn't inundated with root veggies? making soups and stews? Tarte Tatins, poached pears? We made these great T-shirts for the incoming freshman one year -- "I'm unique just like everyone else!" They seem apropos at the moment. What sort of cry for approval is a food blog, anyway? a need to reassure ourselves that we are special, that we don't sit down to rice-a-roni every night, get our meals from McDonalds. I see no reason to revel in mediocrity (and trust me, I enjoy a good box of rice-a-roni) but I understand that it is a luxury that I am able to eat organically, that it is a luxury to have the time to prepare food, a luxury to have an educational background that made sure I thought hard when addressing any aspect of the world -- even my dinner. Frankly, it's a spoiled position to come from. There is nothing wrong with striving to be our best but somehow food blogs still smack of elitism for me. By and large they are associated with a certain socio-economic class, and in some cases their authorship seems intent on demonstrating that. Not that there isn't joy inherent, as well, and the simple desire to share that joy, spreading the wealth as that terrible socialist candidate would say. Not that once you really learn how to cook (something I'm still working on) you learn how to make even the cheapest, most humble of meals a feast for your tastebuds. I don't paint all food bloggers with a black brush, individually there are still those I read with regular frequency. It's just looking at the genre as a whole that enables these sweeping generalizations, this semi-indefinable sense of angst. Ultimately I think some part of me wanted to build community from this online home. With friends scattered to all corners, and the ones in town I rendezvous with merely once a quarter at best this felt perhaps like I was bringing food to the table. Sharing meals digitally, since our busy lives mean we never share them in person any more. In retrospect, not the worst idea, but also not one I'd fully realized. With that perspective I'm almost tempted to solider on, start writing again, sharing again. Almost, but not quite. Not now. And so, the end of the current era. I've eaten a lot of hot dogs from a lot of carts in the past several months but instead of telling you about them I suggest if you're interested you go look for them yourself. You'll be surprised what you find when you start looking -- carts spring up in the strangest places, down surprising roads. Sure, you might end up thinking, "I paid $4 for this?" But you'll also find those wonderful fat koshers for $1.50, the ones where they throw in the relish for nothing, offer onions and, yes, mayonnaise. I'm not sure if this blog will be resuscitated in another form at another time but in the meantime I'm packing away the dishes and moving out. xoxo cc