I resisted blogging for a long, long time, preferring to send impersonal group "update" messages from the various countries I was in about shenanigans, travel, and so on than actually publishing a website for the greater Internet community to hear from my oh-so-interesting inner monologue about about my oh-so-interesting life.
Ironically it is now, when my life has been at its most mundane (living in my parents' basement, in the town I grew up in, on unpaid leave), that the urge to write has been incessant. And I like to write about things I enjoy. And one thing I enjoy most is food.
When I reflect on various highlights of my life, I most clearly remember the first Sauerbraten my host mom Angie made the year I was an exchange student in the village of Ruderting (600 inhabitants, I was probably the token non-Bavarian), the stuffed Turkish bell peppers my friend Anita and I cooked for Thanksgiving my junior year abroad in Paris, the first actual Thanksgiving turkey I cooked all by myself in Berlin (amazingly tender, a very possible reflection of the fact that I was in love ), the first meal I cooked for myself in Islamabad constructed entirely from goods from the Commissary (I believe frozen spinach, canned tomatoes and pasta were involved, as was a healthy dose of wine. The meal is pictured above.) And I could go on, and on, and on. . .
For me food is memory. For better or worse, it is how I remember events in my life. And cooking is what I turn to when I need a stress relief, or just to enjoy the shear joy of touching fresh ingredients. And now that I have some fundamental and scary changes, cooking and food are going to be extremely useful both in terms of helping me look forward, cope with the corresponding anxiety, help me come to terms with the past, and remember those moments when life was happy, my stomach full, and tout etait bien.
So enjoy the blog as much or as little as you like. I would love to get feedback on the recipes as well as hear about your own experiences with food, but if you find it trite or dull, ben alors, personne ne sois obligee de le lire. However if there was/is someone who could tell me how to do umlauts and accents on letters, I would, naturally be eternally grateful. And my inner language nerd would sleep better at night.
Yours always,
E.
PS - the francophone influence (both linguistic and in dishes to come) stems from the fact that while I did grow up with amazing food around me, I really started cooking for myself the year I studied in Paris (1999 - 2000) and for the first time lived in an apartment right behind the Place des Vosges with my friend Caroline. In my experience, food and cooking are fundamentally linked with that first experience of trying to be an adult and fending for myself.
