July 09, 2006 - 11:08 p.m. So I've been busy... One would expect a hiatus to be punctuated with updates: "En route to my first million, I'll drop a note." "Dicey connectivity in Cambodia, perhaps another time." "Almost finished splitting the atom." No, no and no. Instead, I've been alternating between ennui and exhaustion. Getting fatter. Staying the course with the job. Developing Stockholm syndrome. Bah. I have lots of reasons not to write. The fucking cats like to sit on the keyboard or my wrists. (You think I'm lying; I'm not.) It's too hot, that is, when it's not too cold. I don't want to say what's really going on. But fuck it, I'm gonna write what I please, unless I give up on this as well. So I'll just write about, uh ... cooking. I've never cooked fish well. I'm able to order it at a restaurant, but cooking it is another thing entirely. This goes back to my childhood, when our neighbors would bring us freshly caught trout and my mom would immediately toss it in the freezer, then fry til stiff, serve with bones intact, a dry and painful meal. But yesterday I watched the ever-shiny Tyler Florence create salmon with a dill and creme fraiche sauce and now I know how to make great tasting fish: add three tablespoons of saturated fat for every six ounces of fish. Or so it seemed. This also explains why Tyler is so shiny, a magnet for all of that ambient fat. I read an old Betty Crocker cookbook recently and it struck me how most of the meals relied on canned cream of mushroom soup, gelatin desserts and iceberg lettuce. I have a subscription to "Cooking Light" and they just about apologize when an ingredient is not freshly picked from your garden. What will food be like twenty years from now? Will we serve vegetables still rooted in dirt? Will there be anything left on earth that we don't eat? Lately, whatever I cook ends up slightly off. My cookies are cakey instead of chewy, my potato salad lacks zing. It doesn't help that it's been blazing hot this weekend. These are the times I wish I could simply stop eating, subsist on cereal. Ugh, the cat is sitting on my wrist. I'm done. � previous - next