Wednesday 16 November 2011

This Is The Part Where You Roll Your Eyes

As I write, the effects of 25mg of codeine are taking hold.  I've done nothing of note for the last 10 days, due to chronic pain caused by fibroid related issues.  Basically, my guts have been kicking me in the guts.

So what's this got to do with a food blog?  Why am I telling you about the workings of my internal organs?  Is this blog written my someone cruel, nasty and self obsessed?

The short answer is yes.  All bloggers blog for themselves, methinks.  Therefore, self-obsession is a prerequisite for any blogger, or anyone who wishes to maintain an identity in the online world.

If you don't find yourself fascinating, or your relationship to your chosen topic (wellness, marathon running, pizza eating, Provence-exploring, mouse-desexing, package-critiqueing) utterly absorbing, you're hardly going to put the time and effort into writing about it, are you?

As for the cruel and nasty part - 'yes' to that too.  Just ask the other blogs I've started and abandoned. 

As for talking about how my insides work, well, there will be plenty of that.  Diabetes, depression and lots of 'lady problems' i.e. fibroids and endometriosis are the drawn straws in my genetic lottery.  If I'm not battling one, I'm trying to stave off others. 

"Where's the food part then, you plainly self-absorbed and rather unpleasant creature?"

The food part is everywhere.  Think - why do people blog about food?  Because food is life. 
It's society, context, art, health, geography, history, politics, etiquette, everything. 
Every subject you were taught in school has some relationship to food.  From dodgy spice racks made in shop class to memorising the periodical table, all of what we know and are taught has a relationship to what we eat.

We are fascinated with food because we are fascinated with life.

Anyway, back to the present - due to the enormous amount of painkillers ingested and general uselessness of my current condition, I've missed out on going to the Duchess of Spotswood for breakfast, and doing Korean barbecue at home.  These events were to occur last Sunday, when I awoke with sharp, stabbing pain.  But bugger that.

The worst part was Missing Out On Food.  The petulant, childlike manner of my internal temper tantrum expressed a veritable sea of disappointment.

"But I really, really wanted to try the Duchess' mango and coconut yoghurt tapioca thingy!", "What, no grand feast of meat, meat and more meat?  No sizzle of porky bits?  No kimchee?!"

Like a child at Easter diagnosed with lactose intolerance, I sulked and sulked hard. 

In pyjamas, with greasy hair, clutching a hot water bottle to my abdomen I could only mourn for what was lost. 

The last time I ate at Duchess, the salmon was so juicy and the asparagus so tender, the peeled stalks coated unctuously (I used the word 'unctuous'.  See, it's a real food blog after all!) with the creamy-drippy bantam egg yolk.  And they have brown sugar with their coffee there, giving it an almost-burnt caramel background.

I had hoped to recover in time to cook up bite-sized bits of cow and pig on our Korean barbecue grill, but that wasn't to be either.  After the morning sulk and a nap, I awoke to wooziness and the sort of pain that makes you go cross-eyed.  By then my senses were too dull and the pain too great to really get upset.

However, it must be said that in our household we love Korean barbecue so much that we've taken apart the smoke alarm in order to cook it regularly, courting death and defying good sense. 
Life and limb at risk for pieces of nashi-marinated beef smeared with ssamjang wrapped in lettuce with garlic slivers.    

I love food.  I may be flawed, perverse and more than a little mad, but at least my love is pure.

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