The Curmudgeonly yet Amiable Foodster

A brief statement of purpose

There are already about a billion food blogs, so what might be a justification of yet another one, and who am I to do it?

What I aim to do in this blog is more than simply provide recipes. While recipes of my own will, in fact, be posted, some of the blog will consist of a variety of comments about restaurants and their practices, food preparation tips, personal annoyances (such as loud restaurants and the epidemic of misspellings on menus), and whatever else pops into my head relating to what we put in our mouths (and swallow, I hasten to add). The whole thing is meant to be somewhat provocative. I hope, if nothing else, it won't be boring. I, of course, solicit reader participation.

As for who I am and why I think I might have something to contribute to public discussions on this essential and pleasurable activity - eating - you'll have to click here.

A word on the recipes that appear on this blog:

First, some recipes here will involve ingredients not typically found in household kitchens, although if you're reading this, you must be particularly interested in cooking and therefore more likely to have them than is the average person - whoever that might be. There's nothing really rare, just items not seen in the first several editions of the Betty Crocker cookbook. (I haven't looked at more recent editions.) A couple of examples: smoked Spanish paprika, which is becoming more commonplace, and nut oils. Unless I think a given ingredient's absence from a recipe will seriously alter the taste and appeal of the preparation, I'll try to remember to suggest substitutes.

Second, most of the recipes will be original in the sense that, as far as I can recall, I invented them. But here are some qualifications to that claim: I may have gotten the basic idea of a recipe from another source . . . but probably a long time ago, and I've forgotten where. In other words, the inspiration may not have been mine, although the execution almost certainly bears my stamp. Also, just how legitimate is the claim to originality in recipes, anyway? Think about it in probability terms. There are many, many people preparing many, many dishes. Aren't the chances pretty good that someone, somewhere has put together the same ingredients as I? Oh well, perhaps my thirty-plus years as an academic has made me particularly sensitive to plagiarism concerns. My point here is that I will make every effort to attribute to the proper source any non-original recipe that appears here, even if my alterations are minimal (if they're maximal, it becomes a different recipe, doesn't it?).

The Curmudgeonly yet Amiable Foodster

A brief statement of purpose

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

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