How many times have you searched for a recipe online, found some promising concept on a food blog, then been forced to scroll past paragraphs of inane commentary about the writer’s feelings about the weather and her (it’s always a her) kids’ crazy fall schedule and her trip to Florida? I’m putting fellow women in a box right now, which I realize isn’t cool, but we’ve all been there. You laboriously rotate your wrist to move the screen past all that meaningless text and annoying ads to the list of ingredients, muttering with indignance, “get to the recipe!”
But as a genre, we collectively seem to love food writing. Stories connected to food are charming, to be lapped up as guilty pleasure reading, inducing daydreams about accompanying Ruth Reichl to restaurants in disguise or Samin Nosrat to the beach to eat feta and cucumbers. For Christmas I received a cookbook that is precisely not only a collection of recipes, but of stories behind the ingredients making up the authors’ home cuisine, and her connections to the food–nd it won a cookbook of the year award. (Vivan Howard’s Deep Run Roots).
All this to say, food stories, even on a blog, aren’t inherently painful. And that’s the truth I hope you’ll hold onto for an upcoming series of posts.
Inspired by a stray comment from an old friend I reconnected with recently (thanks Jonathan!), stay tuned for “Pretty Good Bread,” a series featuring, well, pictures of things I bake and the stories behind it. I hope they won’t be inane, there won’t be annoying ads, and there probably won’t even be a recipe to scroll to. The point is less to induce you to bake, more to bring you into the wonder to be found even in this most ordinary task, traditionally an obligatory daily chore for many women, and by choice, a regular chore of mine. Let’s call it an experiment: will there be something interesting to say about something done on repeat? Will the subject be exhausted, or if I pay attention, will there be in these ordinary, repeated acts a nugget worth sharing?
My bet is yes. There will probably be some duds–stories, and loaves, and I won’t shy away from them. There may even be an inverse relationship between quality of bake and of the tale you have to tell about it. They may not be perfect, but still rather enjoyable, I hope, with tea, or toasted with jam or smeared with fatty cheese. Not perfect, but still pretty good bread.
Hot tip: I may be doing some extra baking in the weeks ahead courtesy of a related experiment, also called Pretty Good Bread. It’s not launched just yet, but it is live. Which means you can not only read all about it, but send a loaf of bread to a loved one near me. (You may even read about that loaf here!) Sneak peeks (and sneak orders) encouraged. Follow on @prettygoodbreaddc.
One way or another, I hope you’ll come alone for the ride!
