The Corner Table: You Are What You Want to Eat

I love food. This is most visibly apparent by my bulging waistline and the constant rivulet of saliva traversing down the bottom right side of my face. Yup, I love food. I love eating it. I love smelling it. I love talking about it. I love dreaming about it... Okay, not really. I usually have nightmares about food, in that I never actually get to eat in any of my dreams involving food (usually served buffet style), but I digress.

Most importantly, I have found that I love cooking food. More accurately, I have rediscovered a love of cooking. When I was young, I would watch cooking shows on TV. Julia Child was my favorite (and, perhaps, my first), and I would madly transcribe the recipes as she reeled them off with such delight. I never got to try any of those recipes, but I eventually became quite the consummate baker during high school. That was driven mostly by my insatiable adolescent appetite. I would come home craving an after-school snack, so I'd bake some biscuits. Or some cookies. Or a cake!

As an adult, I lost the will to cook for myself, but never the love. Two of my proudest domestic moments from early on were making homemade cranberry sorbet and pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving at my friends' house and, the next year, making a full Thanksgiving meal for four at my own apartment (with vegetarian accommodations, even!).

Over the past few years, I have come full circle, once again feverishly copying recipes. Thankfully, 20 years of technological advances have allowed me to jump from manually transcribing Julia Child to Googling a recipe, then simply cutting and pasting it into a document. (This has led to a serious recipe collecting addiction that blasts the Pokemon craze out of the freakin' water.) I've also been able to test -- and modify -- several great recipes, for both traditional homemade fare and restaurant-quality items. This is where I stand right now and where you, dear reader (because I assume there's only one of you), reap the benefit of my trial and error.

I have long wanted to add a food component to this blog. Food is as integral to a culture as its politics or religion(s) (or lack, thereof). Like any institution, it influences and is influenced by its people, their history and their surroundings. It brings us together -- and, when there's only one donut left, can tear us apart. It is entertainment; it is culture. And, of course, that is what I write about and explore.

So, welcome to the Corner Table! My current project is cataloging the 753 recipes I have saved on my computer (I told you I was addicted) and coming up with a successful system that will ultimately allow me to more easily access my recipes for whatever need I am trying to meet. This may take awhile, so that's probably what I'll focus on for the moment. But once I'm up and running again, I aim to delve into my foodie adventures. I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I do.

So, slap on your rib bib, grab a wet nap and let's do this!