I've really been enjoying the return to blogging over the last few months. It's a fun creative outlet and I finally have somewhere to dump my tirades and deluded manifestos. But saying that this return to blogging is a 2024 trend is not quite the truth.
No, I'm not talking about my recent move into professional communications. I do spend a lot of time writing articles, news releases and other stuff that could be called "blogs". But that's not what I'm talking about.
This is hard to admit.
I'm a food blogger.
If it's any consolation, I'm not a good one. In fact, I'm downright lazy about it.
It came from repeated requests from all three of the kids to start writing down the recipes of the food I make for them. Fried rice, "homemade" hamburger helper, pizza, corn salad, lemonade and a million more recipes are a big part of my family's diet and something that the kids want to preserve and carry on. I'm honoured. I suppose.
Typically, the request was that I should write a cookbook. But I haven't used a cookbook in decades and I've noticed that this internet thing doesn't seem to be going anywhere. So I figured why not start a food blog with my recipes.
And so was born An Orange Kitchen.
I don't post very often, and I find it challenging to put into words some recipes that are more about technique than they are ingredients. It's why my pizza and fried rice recipes still haven't been posted.
The only rule I have for the blog is no preamble. The recipe must come first. I can (and do) post-amble, it's fine to give a recipe a story or some context. But no one... hold on a sec. FOOD BLOGGERS PAY ATTENTION - NO ONE WANTS TO READ YOUR LIFE STORY WHEN THE'RE TRYING TO GET A RECIPE FOR SOUVLAKI. It can wait until I learn how much pork I need.
I do hope to continue contributing recipes, maybe get a bit motivated to write up the more complex ones and who knows - maybe one day I'll put some money down and get the recipes bound up into a book I can give out as a present. But for now, it's a work in progress. And it's a lie. A big old lie.
I found a new recipe last night that had the only good preamble I've ever seen. It was about 30 words that basically said "I marked this as good in the church cookbook after it was sent to us by some Mennonites here in southern Ontario."
ReplyDeleteThis was the first recipe that has ever made me go "Really? That seems like a lot of cheese..." Most of the time I just double or triple the cheese content.
It was delicious.