I feel like as an inaugural post (well, re-inaugural), I should be saying profound things. Such as, It has been two years since I last started this blog in Paris, and now that I’m out of college and floundering about in the real world, I Have Learned Things.
Instead, though, I want to talk about how impossible it is to start a blog. First off, there were the technical difficulties: last night, my computer charger, who has had a faltering, failing red light for the past few months, finally melted in half. I went to tug the cord, to cajole it into its gritty old slot, and the cord detached from the charger head in an oddly soft parting of plastic. There was this little bundle of silver fibers bunching out of the cord, looking like electronic neurons, and I felt briefly like a mad scientist angrily waving my bare wires about. The charger head was still affixed to my computer, looking rather decapitated, like those big tractor trailers missing their cargos you see on the highway.
Then, of course, the toilet broke. My roommate was on her way out to work, as I called down the hall to her, “Ummmm? I think I broke the toilet?”
“Text me if you need anything! Bye!” and she ran out the door. I felt like a naughty child, but the break was just a clean white snap of the handle, and luckily there was nothing to be embarrassed about. When bathroom gadgets break, you always feel ashamedly responsible, like somehow the plumbing can’t handle you and that’s usually a bad thing.
And those are nature’s signals telling me not to start a blog. I won’t get into everything about blogs being self-centered, pretty useless, and unless you have a fascinating life, good photos, or good recipes, nobody in their right mind should be interested in what you have to say. My What’s-Appropriate meter is all out of wack, and I’m going to keep spinning dizzily in circles until the hand gets permanently stuck at Self Justification.
Anyways speaking of broken gadgets and widgets, I will say that the Apple Store is a beautiful thing, and as I unwrapped my shiny new white chocolate charger from its candy wrapper, even I (a non-believer) felt the thrill of technology. I mean, any store that has opaque stairways like digitally frozen waterfalls, or an entire outlet situated beneath a square glass pyramid, I.M. Pei-like, is going to charm the pants off even the most digitally incapable.
Foodstuffs
Yesterday I made a pretty good version of Epicurious’s Spanish White Beans with Spinach last night for my vegetarian and microwave-dinner-eating friends. Sometimes I worry that my cooking borders on too wholesome. Don’t get me wrong–I used 3 sticks of butter the other day in some jam thumbprint cookies, and I’ll be the first one to fry my potatoes in duck fat–but there’s something so satisfying in wilting an exuberant pot of fresh spinach into floppy green tendrils. When a recipe begins with sautéing an onion or two and half a clove of garlic in the oil of sun-dried tomatoes, you can’t really go wrong. Actually, I added the part about the sun-dried tomato oil, but now you know to do it. That oozy, seed-littered stuff is like liquid gold, and I liberally souse all my pasta with it, unless it means leaving the remaining sun-dried tomatoes high and parched in their jar. This Epicurious recipe is otherwise good, although I added much more water, a pinch of curry powder and cinnamon, and let the covered beans stew for a good half hour. I really don’t like that starchy, beany white taste of beans fresh out of the can, and by cooking them longer, they get nice and tender. Also, my dinner guests were working women and don’t get home until late.
I suppose I should put pictures up, since who reads content anymore if there is food pornography? Well, shoot. Next time.
