Hiatus?

How about just "stuck."

If you look at the date of my last post (ahem January), the amount of time that has gone by no longer qualifies for the excuse of me telling you that "I've been busy." So what gives?

I think what has kept me from investing more time into blogging is my inconsistency. Inconsistency in my menu choices and inconsistency in my cooking style. Most times when I'm throwing together stuff for a meal it isn't the best time to grab the camera. Yes, I cook most of the week. Yes, I love to take photos of my food. Yes, I love to share recipes that I've created from out of thin air (and also gleaned from other genius sites that must get credit for them.) But sometimes what I create in my kitchen isn't always blog-worthy. Who wants to see a bunch of  photos of leftovers?

Despite what you've heard, cooking isn't always pretty. 

I am constantly inspired by recipes, photos, memories and, of course, other blogs. I see how brilliantly creative Heidi, Ree, Molly and company are -they are pro's at this thing!  And each of them have started out with a blog template, a camera and some food, all things that I have. But suppose in all the excitement of starting this site I was setting myself up for more work than I was ready for. It takes a lot of discipline to record specific experiences (especially when attempting to incite smells, texture and flavor in 2-dimensional digital format) and maybe that's a little something I need to work on. Cooking is something I'd love to do professionally, but I have a full time career outside the home so for now it's just hobby of mine that I feel very passionate about. Do hobbies take discipline? Yes, of course they do. But hobbies are also supposed to be fun and something to look forward to amidst the mundane responsibilities of daily life. Like going to work. Ha! I'm just kidding. Sort of.

So I'm basically giving myself permission to be more casual about this thing. My blog may never be as beautiful as the ones that personally inspire me. I will strive to have as many photos as possible in each post, but I may not quite get there. And as you can already tell, there will be lots of self reflection in addition to the food stuff. No one said this site was supposed to be perfect.

And this is where I stop beating myself up and start enjoying it.

Weakness

I'm going to start with a little confession.

(This will be one of many confessions throughout these posts, so please bear with me.)

I don't eat meat. But I love hotdogs. L-o-v-e them.

Notice the receipt for $1.65. 
Beat that, Dodger dog.


Let's back this up a little. I allow myself to eat meat on two occasions: when it comes to meat-filled dishes from my Chinese upbringing that my grandmother prepared when I was a youngin' (more on that at another time) and hotdogs.

I've taken sabbatical on eating meat on a few occasions. For various reasons that would take too long to explain, I mostly do it now because I've taken such a long break from eating red meat and chicken that the texture really weirds me out. I can't get past the muscle-y fibrousness of a piece of breast meat or the moist fleshy flavor of a medium-rare steak (that's how I used to order it.) Nope. Can't do it. If it's something that's still attached to the bone? Forget about it. It's one thing to eat a living thing (I still eat fish), but it's another to visually be aware of the process of how a cute four-legged (or two-legged) animal got to your kitchen...

These things are so damn cute. I just wanna wrap my arms around their enormous heads.

Photo courtesy of my favorite cowgirl.

 ...Especially when I fantasize about living on a farm just to have my own cow as a pet. Moo.

But here's where it get's complicated..

I still love hotdogs. (Sorry moo-cows.) Hotdogs fall into the culinary category of a forcemeat and they have THE worst reputation of being created from all the leftover parts of the animal. Did somebody just say lips and assholes? But with a hotdog...I can't explain it. Yes, it's a animal by-product. Yes, something had to die for me to eat it. Yes, it's made from MEAT. And it's the salty, spiced goodness of all that unnaturally pink ground up flesh that I covet despite all those other things.

Try not to hate me this early in the game.

If you read my last post, you'll remember that I suffered irreversible emotional damage from my trip to Costco.

And what better way to remedy a traumatic experience than with one of my favorite things in the whole world. A Costco hotdog. A Polish Hebrew National, to be exact.

Aren't you excited for me?!









 







"One polish dog, please!"  
(Don't worry, churros. I'll be back for you someday.)




 A few seconds later... 

 

This is always the part of the hotdog where I get a little sad. *sniff*    

And when it was all over, the fat-girl in me ordered this: 
  

Don't worry. There's no meat in this. I checked. 

Economy sized clusterf*ck

I had to go to Costco to get dog food today. I always dread having to go because it's such madness as soon as you pull into the parking lot that you almost don't give a shit about the the Octomom family packs of delicious muffins and the 5 lb bag of gummie bears that you need to replenish every other week. I'd rather not deal, but hey, the dogs gotta eat, too.

I like to consider myself a professional at sussing out what time of day to shop to avoid the onslaught of soccer moms and their enormous gas guzzling Navigators with 11 children in tow. If you need to run errands during the week, It is my recommendation to hit the stores when they either first open or between 1pm (to avoid the lunch crowd) and before 4pm (to avoid the above mentioned after-school Suburbanite catastrophe.) If you have the nerve to enter the world of retail after 4:01pm, God help you. Take a sedative. You'll need it for the commute home.

                   Costco's got everything. Travel agents, optometrists, delicious 

                   pharmaceuticals and a food court. They might as well save people the time and 

                   build a church inside. Photo courtesy of this lady.

If you've never been, Costco is an experience. An event, if you will. Families plan weeks in advance for their trip to this giant superstore to not only to score a year's worth of goods, but to horde a tasty array of food samples given out by Costco's staff. Who knew that you can get full off of tiny, bite sized treats on a stick during an afternoon spent perusing the aisles of Costco? (Well by the number of moochers lined up for free snacks, apparently everybody.) No wonder this place is always busy. If someone's doling out free Bagel Bites, expect a party of the worse kind. And don't be surprised if you're still in the parking lot after a good 30 minutes, blocked by a dozen cars filled with starving people fighting for the same parking spot. You haven't even gotten inside the store yet and you already want to go home.

   

     

There should be a limit to how many offspring are allowed to accompany an adult into 

the warehouse. Look at how many beggars are lining up for those Lil' Smokies. Don't 

people feed their kids? If you can't afford to feed 'em, please stop having them. 

Photo courtesy of here.

Once you're inside you'll know what I mean. The warehouse is filled with pretty much everything a human needs to live in excess and more. And I swear they design Costco like Las Vegas casinos. They want you to stroll around and get sucked in by the bright lights and awesome deals. If you were successfully find your way around, they wouldn't be able to sell half the shit they're trying to schlep to you. The idea is to wander around, angrily maneuvering your way around hungry stray children and lost husbands all while being wowed by the great prices one after another and finding comfort in getting 8 of the same item for 50 cents less than if you were to buy them individually. Is it really worth all that stress? I've been to Costco enough times to have figured out that there is no store merchandise directory available to customers, yet they are all built and designed the same across the country. In case of an emergency, how would a person locate a fire exit amidst the visual noise that is Costco? As many as a thousand people could be inside of Costco during an earthquake and they could all be buried alive under hundreds of pounds of raw hamburger meat and Gloria Vanderbuilt denim within minutes. Somebody call the fire marshal.

Next post: a little reward for all my trouble.

Yikes.

I've been in love with food since I was very young. I was a heavy child growing up and I struggled with my weight until my late teens. Food provided a certain comfort that I didn't know how to let go. It wasn't easy, but it has taken me many years of fighting those fat-girl demons. I won the battle, but sometimes they show up requesting pie.

I like to think of myself as an indecisive impulsive. I'm quick to start something, but I obsess the hell out of it for days on end before following through. I won't bore you with obscure details of how I got to this point, but here I am starting my very first blog entry at 2am and I'm pretty damn terrified of what I've just done.

As an adult, cooking has become my outlet. Slowing down to participate in the process of creating something awesome helps me really appreciate the finished product that much more. I've developed some mad kitchen skills over the years so I especially enjoy cooking for other people. I've discovered that it's a very intimate thing to sit down to a meal that you've created for your friends. You're constantly trying to touch on the familiar while attempting to bring that certain element of *woah.*

Starting this blog has been a very ambitious act on my part. I'm a little surprised that I've invested this much time already. I've always envied the creative lives of food bloggers and the dedication to what makes them flow. I aspire to be equally savvy, but it may be a long long while before this blog will ever reach the ranks of their tenacity (i.e. I like naps almost as much as food.) In the meantime I'll write down a list of all the things I hope to accomplish in this venture. Most likely it'll look like my Trader Joe's grocery list so don't be surprised if my next post is titled Eggs, Yogurt, Two-buck Chuck.