You Are What You Blog?

I am aware that, in the wide wide world of the interweb, this blog is small potatoes. Micro fingerlings, if you will.

Which is why I find it interesting when the big(ger) boys and girls in the blogosphere start writing in their blogs what I have either also written about, or at least thought about, when considering what is blogworthy. Namely, in this instance, whether or not the food we have been preparing and eating around here is interesting enough to post about.

Just this morning I was reading one of my favorites, Amy writing in Eggs on Sunday, who stated,

Maybe this is why I’ve been turning to comfort-type foods lately; I don’t know. I’ve been making things that are warm and easy and that we can eat for a few days in a row during the week. At first I was hesitant to blog about some of these dishes, but then I reconsidered: if I’m falling for these types of foods, maybe some of you are just as discombobulated by March as I am, and maybe you’re in need of some comfort-in-a-bowl just as much as I am.

I thought back to the times when posting gaps occurred in my own blogging attempts because I was convinced that the food we were eating was simply not of interest to anybody else. I considered leaving out dishes that were too easy, too common, dishes that included some pedestrian ingredient I was quietly ashamed of,or felt was not in keeping with a purported philosophy of eating locally and organically whenever possible.

In the back of my head there was always this voice, whispering, "what would impress fill-in-the-name-of-famous-food-blogger?". Two big problems with that: 1) As far as I am aware, nobody famous reads this blog and B)paying attention to the judgmental voices in my head falls into the category of "looking for snarky ways to prove I am better than you are" which is, on a good day, not at all the way I (want to) roll.

As an example of the form my hesitancy to reveal real cooking around here generally assumes because it would not clear some fantasy bar of being noble enough or earnest enough to satisfy I don't know who, I kept this post about lasagna in draft form for two weeks. My lasagna recipe essentially comes off the side of the box. It doesn't use homemade noodles or sauce or cheese I've made in my own kitchen from the goats we raise.Rumors and neighborly noise complaints aside, we don't even own any goats. Raccoons, birds, deer, squirrels, snakes and even tree rats all abound and freely frolic around here, but we have nothing critterwise that produces any sort of useful food.

Should I keep my lasagna a secret? It is too embarrassing to admit I don't make my own pasta? Is that some sort of disqualifier for food blogging that I do not make everything from scratch? Am I just some small town (smaller chested, yikes!) version of a Sandra Lee?I sat down, hard, and thought about that for a while.

Finally I decided that 1) I don't have a large enough readership to play such games and B) if I get to the point where I am cooking to blog rather than blogging about what I am cooking, then something has gone terribly wrong.

So. I am taking a deep breath and pledging to keep blogging about all sorts of things we eat around here, and not skipping around to report upon only the loftiest attempts I make at putting meals together. There are loads of other people out there already who are going to incredible lengths to cook impressively from scratch, take professional photographs of the results, and then regale you with entertaining, name studded stories about their lives rubbing shoulders with food world luminaries.

That isn't me, and it never will be.

What I will write about is what we are doing in a real house with real people living in it, the food we like, or the food it turns out we did not like, and why not. If that is ok by you then please, continue to drop in and do consider leaving a comment or two as the mood strikes. It is nice when I know you have been here, because when it comes to blogging, I really like the company.

Tonight? Corned Beef Hash made with leftovers from my recent trial of Elise's corned beef from Simply Recipes. Stay tuned....