Coming to terms with my addiction

Photo and food by Hanna Ernst @hannalamode.blogspot.com

Hi, I am Necessity, and I am a food-blog junkie. I love scouring food blogs, making a list of ingredients for my next market trek or grocery run, and I love planning, chopping, blending, baking, and otherwise making and tasting food that I’d never dreamed of eating until my discovery of food blogs.  Food blogs have expanded my food horizon, and shaken me out of my hum-drum food consumption, wherein I eat merely to survive.  Now, instead of boiling water for pasta EVERY DAY, I actually vary the food produced in my kitchen. Granted, there is still pasta eaten in our home, but the variety has increased.

Gorilla Girl and Monkey Man wander into the kitchen and ask, “What are you making now, Mommy?” They taste, sample, and often reject my offerings, but I’m priming the pump, and hopefully, they’ll grow to appreciate my endeavors in the kitchen. Someone once told me that kids need to try a new food at least fifteen times before they are willing to consume it on a regular basis. I’m on my way.

I’ve had one smashing success (aside from the wildly popular ice cream) recently: pizza, all from scratch from several food blog sources. I was frankly impressed with myself. I made whole wheat dough (and even did some adapting on my own, taking some risks there), a fabulously simple but incredible sauce with only three ingredients, and added pepperoni and mozzarella cheese.  Pepperoni pizza is Monkey Man’s favorite, but Gorilla Girl is usually not a huge fan of pizza — this time was different.  Either they were hungrier than usual, or they loved the pizza, because they ate about half of it before Ed even got home from work to try a sample. I primed them with the question, “Who makes the best pizza?” mid-eating frenzy. Of course, now I do!

My food blog addiction has some downsides.  It can be expensive to attempt new recipes, and if the food isn’t quite what we expected, well, we still have to eat it.  Thankfully, we’re not picky, and most of the recipes have turned out great. I also have a wildly full pantry since I stock up on things that I might want to use in future recipes.  My addiction, though it has some flaws, is fairly innocuous, as addictions go.  The good news for our wallet is that I’ll probably have to cut back on this addiction once the school year hits and I only have serious cooking time one day a week.

One of the upsides of a food blog addiction — it encourages me to invite folks for dinner, and cooking for a crowd is satisfying in a different way than cooking for family.  No doubt, feeding a family is primal, and the pleasure of the work involved in concocting new dishes to sample makes dinner an event instead of a chore. Family and friends make dinner a party — and Gorilla Girl and Monkey Man love parties!

I’ll include here some links to my favorite food blogs for those of you who share my addiction, and for those of you who are mildly curious about the fuss. Please feel free to share your own favorite food blogs — I’m always interested in something new.

Smitten Kitchen
Vanilla Garlic
Kiss My Spatula
Hannalamode: My step-daughter’s blog!
Local Kitchen
Simply Recipes
Viet World Kitchen

The thing about food blogs is that they often contain funny stories, memories, and thoughtful insights, and yet  the authors tie their insights to the more practical wisdom of cooking, and to the constant themes of food, sustenance, and sharing. Food blogs offer more than just recipes, and thus the appeal. My own erratic blogging could use some of that thematic control.

However, I’ll stick to my messy blogging approach while faithfully reading about food in its infinite variety as I continue to expand my food-blog addiction. My own blogging mirrors the messiness of my kitchen during new recipe time, and that will have to be as close as I get to being a food blogger.

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