So, it's been a while. As you may have gathered, if you are even faintly interested, things have changed around here. For the better, I hasten to add. Yes, for the better, but that doesn't mean that all the changes necessarily were the kind that I would recommend to all and sundry.
In the past, I had time to think about food. Read about food. PLAN food, in more detail and on a different level than the current how-many-times-have-we-had-pasta-this-week-only-two-thank-god-let's-make-it-three-level.
My husband and I even - and this makes me laugh this little despairing laugh that you don't want to hear - had time to TAKE PICTURES OF FOOD before we ate it. I'm sorry, but that just strikes me as so many kinds of ridiculous now.
In my current life, cooking is a very different affair indeed. First, there is the planning. You may be familiar with the old Yiddish proverb Man makes plans, and God laughs. I don't know about men, and I'm not convinced about God either, but toddlers? They laugh at your plans. A lot. Only sometimes the laughing is more of a piercing shriek while they hang on to your leg with all the might they can muster. This means that you can plan to cook whatever fancy concoction you like, but when your child is tired and cranky and won't settle for anything less than your undivided attention, RIGHT NOW, you want to make sure you cook something that is about as demanding as a hamster at noon. So although I never favoured particularly complicated dishes to begin with, I can promise you that I am so far away from haute cuisine now that I probably shouldn't even mention the term. It's definitely more of a basse cuisine. Or perhaps even cuisine souterraine, although I think that might be a bit harsh.
Don't get me wrong, I do still cook, it's just that there are certain constraints now. Time is one, and toddler palatability is another. We've been blessed with a daughter who has a very healthy appetite and is happy to try most of the things I put before her, but we still eat more pasta and minced/ground beef dishes than I would otherwise choose to.
And mealtimes, well - they often involve getting the food on the plates as quickly as possible to silence the shrieking, and then quickly shovelling in my own food while providing my daughter with assistance/supervision/encouragement, hoping that I'll be able to finish my meal before she declares that she's done and/or needs the toilet, NOW.
If that sounds horrific, it's not. We always wanted to have our meals together, as a family, and in general it is a delightful and fun time of the day. It's just a lot more hectic than it used to be, and there is rarely anything that I would want to photograph. Well, not on the plates, anyway.
So although I'd love to return to food blogging, I don't think it's a very realistic dream at the moment. But then it occurred to me that I could still do the blogging part, minus the food. Maybe there'll be an occasional food post - I certainly hope so. Maybe I'll return to my quest for interesting or nostalgic recipes at some point. But in the meantime, I'll just write about anything that pops into my head when I sit down at the end of a Very Long Day (they're all long, trust me). If you want to read it, fine. If you don't, I'll still be here, not writing about food. For now.
