Julia Slaughter

I have a confession – I am a food blog junkie. I’ve never really got into reading blogs, in their infancy I would find someone interesting, read along for a while and then inevitably they would stop updating or they would go somewhere that I couldn’t follow and I would stop reading. I haven’t really paid much attention to this whole blogging thing since the late 1990′s, which is ironic I suppose since now I’m writing one.

I was first called back into blogs by some of my favorite authors – George RR Martin and Neil Gaiman offered a unique window into their world and their lives through their blogs. (Even though GRRM maintains that his is NOT a blog.) I look forward to Neil Gaiman’s updates on his beehives with genuine interest. I admit that sometimes George RR Martin dips into politics which I find rather dull, I do like hearing about his travels with his wife and following along with one of my favorite series.

I don’t remember how it happened but one day I stumbled across a food blog and I felt like I had found buried treasure. I liked seeing real pictures of food that people had cooked, not super beautiful glamor shots that make me feel inadequate when my food doesn’t look like the picture in the book. I liked real recipes that acknowledge that perhaps after a full day at work I might need a recipe that can be prepared in under an hour.

Many food blogs are all linked together and so from that first blog, I went on to another site, and then another. I loved seeing what different people were cooking, and I was fascinated when I found food blogs written by people from other ethnic backgrounds. They use exotic ingredients I’ve never heard of but the bowls of shimmery green soup are intriguing.

I suppose it was a natural evolution for me to start reading food blogs, I’ve fallen in love with Ruth Reichl’s books about food. I love that she tells you something touching and personal and then punctuates those stories with recipes from her personal kitchen. My mouth waters at the way she describes food – it’s wonderful. She really made me start paying attention to what I was eating, not just how it tasted but the textures and the experience of what I was easting.

I’d like to tell you that at some point in time I’d venture to share my recipes and pictures of my concoctions here with you, but the truth is – that’s not really the way I cook. I usually start with a base recipe and then I twist it around until I’m no longer even bothering to measure anymore. I could never tell anyone how to make my Crawfish Pie, I merely get into the kitchen and make it, I need someone else to follow behind me and write down what I pick up and put in there.

Now that I’ve started this it’s really got me thinking…I wonder what’s for dinner?