I had hoped that avoiding the topic of food in my blog posts would translate into weight loss. All right, I hadn’t actually thought about it quite that way. But in hindsight, it seems like there might have been a logical connection. Regardless, if there is a correlation, it is the opposite of what one might hope. The calories, directed away from the screen, have accumulated around my midsection.
The last time I wrote about food (at least the last time I labeled a post as belonging to the category of food) was in mid-July, when I mentioned Korean Breakfast Toast and deviled kidney, among other things. Shortly after writing that post, I tried Korean Breakfast Toast; I was rather disappointed that the dish wasn’t the joyous experience for which I had hoped. Not bad; just not especially good. I have yet to try deviled lamb (or any other) kidney.
This morning, I’m thinking about other foods that might merit time in the kitchen. But, first, we must either repair or replace our oven/range. The damn thing will not reach the temperature we intend. We learned of this problem some time ago when we attempted to cook a frozen pizza. The oven claimed it had reached the desired 400-degree temperature, but when the pizza should have been ready twenty-two minutes later, it had thawed into an almost liquid mess, but had not cooked. Since then, we’ve tried to calibrate the oven temperature to no avail. Long before that experience, I managed to break a knob that controls one of the stovetop burners; the part, alone, is $140 or thereabouts. I almost ordered it, but I discovered I cannot remove the broken knob because I cannot get at the part without the risk of doing damage to the stove. So, we’ve let it sit. Now, with a bad oven and a bad burner knob, we’re thinking about ditching the stove; I’ve never liked it anyway. But I’ve diverged from my intended point: other foods.
If we had a working stove and oven, I might return to a dish I made only once, several years ago (at least six or eight years ago, when we were still in Dallas). The dish is tourtière du shack, an incredibly rich Quebecois meat pie. I recall that it was quite an undertaking, even though I did not include some of the more involved garnish ingredients like calf’s brains and sweetbreads and foie gras. It was delightful, though. I do remember that.
The tourtière du shack was one of about twenty regional main dishes I had planned to prepare during the course of a year. I researched regional foods of the U.S. and Canada, sought out recipes for them, and planned to explore much of the North American continent’s cuisine from the comfort of my kitchen. Spiedie sandwiches, Cornish pasties, oyster pie, Jiggs dinner, and several other regional specialties were to find their way from our kitchen to our plates. For some reason, though, I did not get through the list. I only made a half-dozen or so before giving up on the project. I don’t think I deliberately gave up; I simply stopped making the project a priority and it slipped from my memory out of neglect. Yet another example of my tendency to get side-tracked. I allow myself to veer sharply away from a clear focus and, instead, muddle around with something else that, until that point, was of only tangential interest.
I’ve lost my enthusiasm this morning, already, for writing about food. I’m not even feeling hungry. Bah. I should consider returning to bed. But I won’t. I rarely do. Instead, I’ll wander aimlessly through the house, looking for something that will catch my attention and inflame my interest. But, alas, that something is unlikely to be sufficiently motivating to get me moving. A dull, aching boredom seems to be spilling from my mind. Something will change that. It’s just a question of what and when.
