Agreed. Molly of Orangette is particularly good at creating a persona through stories that both charmed and annoyed; I'd read hoping to find a crack in the facade, convinced that it couldn't be true.* I find this much less annoying at Smitten Kitchen, perhaps in part because the persona is far less deliberately constructed. I think this trait comes out clearest in a food blogger that you didn't mention, though - Pioneer Woman.
* I feel compelled to note, though, that if she asked me out to dinner I certainly wouldn't say no. But she reminds me of those certain friends/acquaintances who appear far too perfect to be true, and such lives inspire both admiration and I suppose a sort of reverse schadenfreude.
Got to admit it. Don't know Pioneer Woman.
The SmitKit persona seems pretty constructed to me, deliberate or not, but I don't read orangette very often, precisely because it turns me off so much, so I can't make a very accurate comparison.
And bless you, Parenthetical, for making it the case that the first comment doesn't consist in saying that the thing which cries out for parody is me.
I don't know how this post ends as I, expecting some recipe, scrolled quickly to the bottom and failing to find one, clicked away.
So does that mean you read the Mathews, eb? Good, innit?
this recipe comes from my close friend so and so, who served it first, sweetened, at her wedding and then--savory--at her husband's funeral--I present it to you in the spirit of profanation
That is very good.
I don't read orangette very often,
During one misguided week of procrastination, I read her entire site. It was a lot to take at once, but I think it actually helped, in a way - overdosing inured me to it all.
And bless you, Parenthetical, for making it the case that the first comment doesn't consist in saying that the thing which cries out for parody is me.
Parenthetical is banned!
overdosing inured me to it all
Letting food blogs be the food of love for food blogs.
The Mathews is awesome. More recipes should be like that. Also, it made me think I should pick up some lamb tomorrow for Easter.
8, 15: Link? Google is being a little bitch.
17: You know I never read your posts, ben.
The Matthews really is great. And since I'm banned anyway, I must admit that I agree with Gonerill.
Letting food blogs be the food of love for food blogs.
Hey, I've read a lot of the Unfogged archives in much the same manner...
Speaking of food, Passover without matzah is proving surprisingly easy so far.
Ah, when you said "read the Mathews" I was thinking "read" was acting in a present continuous tense like manner, and so I thought there must be some food blog out there called "The Mathews" that you thought eb was reading on a regular basis. I didn't realize you meant something along the lines of "have you read the book by Mathews mentioned in the post?".
So clearly this misunderstanding is all your fault.
And since I'm banned anyway, I must admit that I agree with Gonerill.
The truth of Gonerill's assertion is no defense. In fact quite the contrary.
I just picked up some tea matzo to make matzo brei.
Thinner than ordinary matzo is I think the only distinction. Maternal instructions.
I liked the Mathews.
I have similar feelings about Clot/lde Dus/oulier's writing, with all the perfect-grumpy-boyfriend details and the just-so stories about how various recipes came to be, but she doesn't go in for the High Pastoral or traditionalist bullshit, and I like her recipes. They're kind of easy, but not in a boring way.
27: Indeed. And I think I've made something from every single food blogger mentioned thus far; I find them helpful for allowing me to test out the recipes of cookbooks I'd rather like to buy before I actually plunk down the money.
Yeah, that's the thing. I now think of cookbooks almost exclusively as the sorts of things I own for the large-scale breadth of some of them, like the Madison I'm always talking about. But for individual I'll-try-this recipes, I mostly use blogs.
Some of those big cookbooks make a handy defensive weapon. Can brain a guy with the internet.
a sort of reverse schadenfreude.
I seemed to remember a long ago Unfogged conversation about this concept and what to call it, and in fact it did occur.
I like freudenschade. Erfolgtraurigkeitfreude has its charms, but as some guy with the moniker "ben w-lfs-n" points out, it's not very apt.
Almost three full years ago, and by that point I'd already adopted the slashes in my pseud. Man, time flies.
27: I also appreciate that C.D.'s recipes are so flexible about ingredient substitutions, and that she doesn't assume you have an electric mixer.
I have a subscription to Saveur; it cost me something like $8. I've had really good luck with the recipes in it. Much better than with Bon Appetit or Gourmet.
Finishing my dissertation! Not today, but in the next week or so.
And what about you, M/tch? It's either waaaay late, or even eariler for you.
It's early, but I'm going to go build a fence to keep the neighborhood dogs out of a garden that the nonprofit I volunteer for installed at an afterschool program for low-income kids.
I might save a few infants from burning buildings and help some old ladies cross the street while I'm at it. Then I'll need a nap because Sir Kraab and I are going to a Thin Man party this evening, including a backyard viewing of one of the movies. Can't wait.
Oh, and good luck on the Ph.inal slog!
Ben's post, or the seven words of it that I read, reminds me that there is a maple sugar shortage this year. It'll have to be honey on my pancakes this morning.
I just picked up some tea matzo to make matzo brei.
Savory or sweet?
I don't know that parody is quite the right term for the Mathews. It seems to me that it's more a Queneauvian exercise in style. His control over his digressions is magnificent. The Auvergnat song in the middle is a stroke of genius.
Has nobody mentioned that these bloggers probably are trying out for lifestyle-magazine columnist positions?
Oh, JM, it's that kind of cynicism that makes the guy in the other post think that the women are only having sex with him for money.
43 was utterly baffling me until I finally reloaded the main page.
The Mathews is awesome. More recipes should be like that. Also, it made me think I should pick up some lamb tomorrow for Easter.
Too late, Jesus - the lamb needs to marinate for 5-6 days. Maybe Orthodox Easter?
Now that I think of it, 45 should have had some Jesus/Lamb of God humor. Oh well.
Hey, Unfoggedtariat: our Easter lamb will be shanks braised in white wine with mint and lemon. Wine recommendations? Bear in mind that our budget is somewhere between fortified and jug. (Actually, just general varietal/concept - fruity red? oakey white?)
Good Lord, not that particular lamb. I have taxes to do. Just a simple rack would be nice, though.
St. Emilion is a traditional choice with lamb. Does not come in a jug, but it's easily enough fortified.
Too often, parodies of food memoirs are sopping, soporific excuses for the author to declare his or her love for Cheetos and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Rarely can they be savored for the dry wit and confounding prose styling that characterizes a perfectly considered blog post. We asked Neb Nosflow to experiment with food memoir parodies in America's Test Blog. The results were astounding.
48: But will it make sense with lemon and mint and a white wine-based sauce? That's my big concern.
50: I was mostly being facetious; I haven't seen one that would it your budget, or mine, for quite some time. I'd still opt for a red, though, as whites big enough to balance the lamb tend to be overoaked. A medium-bodied Bordeaux-type blend? I don't know if there are any available where you are, but there are plenty from Washington for under $15, and some even have notes of mint.
52: Awesome. Thanks.
I had a feeling the St. Emilion was a put-on, but since it got right to the heart of our concern, I played along.
Thanks for the Henry Mathews, more for the reading list, plus for the hell of it I did a search on "Queneauvian" (41) which through the contingencies of language led me to the French writer Boris Vian, who seems to have been a very interesting character (and of whom to my knowkledge I had never heard). In particular, the first link I followed led to a description of the publication of his own English translation of his book J'irai cracher sur vos tombes (I Spit on Your Graves).
One of his [Vian's] discoveries was an African-American writer by the name of Vernon Sullivan. Vian translated Sullivan's I Spit on Your Graves. The book is about a 'white Negro' who acts out an act of revenge* against a small Southern town, in repayment for the death of his brother, who was lynched by an all white mob. Upon its release, I Spit on Your Graves became a bestseller in France, as well as a instruction manual for a copycat killer whose copy of I Spit on Your Graves was found by the murdered body of a prostitute with certain violent passages underlined. A censorship trail also came up where Sullivan as the author was held responsible for the material. It was later disclosed that Vian himself wrote the book and made up the identity of Vernon Sullivan!*Basically he seeks out white women to "do for him what mother never did for her son" and murders some of them afterward.
Vian seems to have been big in the French jazz scene and was as colorful in death (at age 39) as in life,
On the morning of June 23, 1959, Boris Vian was at the Cinema Marbeuf for the screening of the film version of J'irai cracher sur vos tombes [I Spit ...]. He had already fought with the producers over their interpretation of his work and he publicly denounced the film stating that he wished to have his name removed from the credits. A few minutes after the film began, he reportedly blurted out: "These guys are supposed to be American? My ass!" He then collapsed into his seat and died from sudden cardiac death en route to the hospital.One almost suspects that he is the hoax. A short video of him singing and animation of one of his songs, "La java des bombes atomiques".
Strange thing on wikipedia: "Harry Mathews was, after Marcel Duchamp, the second American chosen for membership in the French literary society known as the Oulipo".
55: Strange thing in my comment, "Henry" Mathews. And I did notice that in Wikipedia. I suspect that if Vian had lived another year he might have been one of the founding members of Oulipo.
Dear Ben, people like stories. Food is emotional and evocative as well as being fuel. And consistent personae are a big part of blogging.
I am making cassoulet for Easter, I think.
I am only a food blogger on Tuesdays.
The Internet is the best cookbook ever invented. If I ever buy a kitchen laptop, it will be for the recipes.
In my social circle offline, vegan cake is now referred to as "lesbian cake", which several friends are happy to explain to newcomers means "Goes down easily".
That isn't my experience of vegan pastries.
Is cake a pastry, properly speaking? Vegan baked goods, let's say.
The main problem with vegan cake is its fragility: cupcakes are easy, layer cakes need some fairly substantial frosting/icing to hold them together.
The main problem with vegan cake is its fragilitythat it sucks.
The main problem with vegan cake is its fragility that it sucks that it won't suck me.
Frowner makes some amazing vegan baked goods. Ask her for recipes.
66: maybe if you paid its way through cake school it would taste better.
Actually there's some local company that makes pretty good vegan cookies.
Jesurgislac, provided I can dig up your email address on your site, I am about to send you a recipe for my favoritest vegan cake -- pine nut and anise cake with blood orange compote. It is moist and delicious and holds together and is a snap to make. You could also swap around the flavorings if you so desired.
That sounds delicious and you should send the recipe to me as well.
I bet it would go well with my as-yet-untested meyer lemon/pine nut/bay leaf marmalade, too.
Nay, you should put it on my food wiki so we can all enjoy it!
Oooh! I don't know how to do that yet, but I will send it to you right now and you can do it -- and also tell me how.
I made a vegan cake for a roommate's birthday a few years ago. Everyone said it was delicious, but it had margarine in it, which I find inedible in any quantity.
75: Done! I've also added you to the wiki so you can post at will. The instructions are on the front page.
I am making cassoulet for Easter, I think
Kind of late for that decision, if you're doing it right.
Not to be judgmental.
JRoth presumably does not think that just buying your goose confit is doing it right.
Or duck confit. Reasonable persons can differ here.
81: presumably b keeps homemade goose confit around, just in case.
JRoth hasn't even yet acquired his fertilized goose eggs.
Anyhow it doesn't take that long to make confit. Easter dinner is like 24 hours away.
Oh, or maybe it does. Stupid lying hard-to-read recipe.
Yeah, but you should really let the confit mature for a month, at least.
Though 88 really decreases the force of 81, what with 83.
May I know where the food wiki is? I've been wishing and wishing someone would link it, but then figured it was perhaps hidden for a reason and therefore didn't want to ask. I would like very much to try the vegan cake mentioned.
Actually, I made a basic vegan chocolate cake (the tablespoon of vinegar one; everyone knows that one) two different ways recently--one, according to Cooks Illustrated was supposed to result in an intensified chocolate flavor (bloom the cocoa, add chopped chocolate and hot coffee) but did nothing at all for the recipe, and one totally improved it (sub in 1/4 whole wheat pastry flour; there's a faint taste as of whole wheat, which I think is nice, and the cake has a more complex flavor plus the crumb is a lot sturdier. It's particularly good with toasted-coconut frosting.
Tomorrow my trusty baking accomplice and I are going to make tasty vegan soda bread and cauliflower kugel.
Oh poo. Ok, I'll make it now for the 4th of July. Bc I hate America.
49 is the greatest comment ever. Declaring Unfogged "America's Test Blog" grants it a completely unmerited dignity.
vegan cake is now referred to as "lesbian cake"
The first time I read this, it registered as "vagina cake is now referred to as 'lesbian cake'." Which sent me to google, where this was the first hit (just a cake, but probably still not safe for work). Certain details seem to indicate a lack of lesbianism, however.
Oh poo. Ok, I'll make it now for the 4th of July.
I suspect you'll need to make poo before July, B.
Have some fun, out on Highway 101.
Vegan head cheese is amazingly good.
I don't think any of us expected him to say that.
The concept of vegan headcheese is running me amok.
Vegan carp is pretty disgusting, though.
The Adventists can simulate anything.