Small Bites: Friends and the Food Chain
Aug 25th, 2009 by Marilyn
I have noticed, lately, a real crossover from the blog world to my real world, especially on the plate. The last two big-time food posts here at Simmer were designed for Summer Fest, brainchild of Margaret Roach, from A Way to Garden and The Sister Project. I loved having a directive: one week tree fruit, one week tomatoes. Cooking is easy, and creating stuff is fun; deciding what to cook and what to post, not so much. Much like Margaret, the Summer Fest mandate really helped me out.
A natural-born mentor, she’s driven to grow things – plants, magazines, friendships – and Fest or no Fest, I like her voice in my head, weeding out indecision and showing me what’s possible. I recently baked (and we devoured) Margaret’s clafouti (recipe via Martha), switching out her peaches for white nectarines and blueberries. She doesn’t think of herself as a baker, Margaret, but her post reminded me that clafouti is a kind dessert – easygoing, straightforward, and invaluable to have around.
April Phillips writes the blog Coal Creek Farm but is a local, a real live person – quite a tall one – right here in Lawrence. We met through her sister Rechelle, who in fact I’d also met through blogging, back in the day. April and her husband Clay are raising four children, and with all those spare hours – not – they’ve got plenty of time for pig farming. Think I’m kidding? There’s chicken-butchering, too. Anyway – this year they raised some gloriously large hogs, and when I was included in April’s annual “Pork Lady!” email, I said yes, bring me that bacon. Now I’m the wildly unkosher holder of pounds of fresh bacon, sage sausage, picnic roasts and thick Canadian bacon, seen sizzling above.
What’s better than a freezer full of porky goodness? April delivering it herself, and staying longer than she’d planned, sitting with Cleo’s head in her lap and a mug of hot tea. We talked and talked, and though we’d met once before, it was, as always, nice to fill in the gaps. It’s not unlike focusing a camera, filling in the gaps, and each time you do you get a clearer, stronger picture of this person, the image of a friend.
Several times a year I try to replicate my beloved Chicago deep dish pizza, especially pizza from Lou Malnati’s, my family’s traditional place. 13 years away and I’m finally edging close to pizza truth; it seems the longer I’m out of Chicago, the nearer I get to my pie. When Paige Orloff, writer and Sister Project genius, first visited Simmer, she left a comment, asking about a recipe for deep dish. It surprised me to realize I don’t have one, that I’ve never written it down and I shrugged, thinking I probably never would. Then I got to trading tales with Paige, and by the time she described me as a “kindred, unruly-haired spirit” – not to mention a virtual “dysfunctional family member,” I knew it might be time to try. The next time I make pizza, Paige, you’re with me in the kitchen. In spirit.
And then there is dear Sara Reddy Coyne, from Culinerapy. I haven’t cooked anything for Sara – not yet – but did cook her something up, and now it can be told: The Baker’s Alphabet post was a gift for an expectant friend, and that friend is Sara. When I posted in mid-July she was still not-hungry, nauseous, and not ready to reveal; but ah, the second golden wave. The fog lifts and you start eating again, ravenous, shiny, content. I’m very happy for Sara and her husband Paul, and wish them many shiny, contented days as their new life begins. It’s lovely to know Sara might walk the floors whispering donut rhymes – something that started in very real midnight hours with Josie, and then went to the virtual world, and now in another pair of real hands, might see daylight again.
I don’t know why I’m so astonished that true connections can be made offscreen, but I am. Every blogger I’ve met says the same thing: worried that in person, they will somehow be disappointed, or disappointing. Since you’ve already glimpsed behind that person’s scenes – a given with childhood pals, but meeting adults, who gets the chance? – expectations may be high, but results even better. It seems that if you put out food, words and trust, new paths may open and in time, circle back.
Sweet post. It’s not just me thinking someone would be disapointed when they meet me after online only contact. This post is a confidence booster in the fact that I’m reassured that we all suffer from “what if they don’t like me?”. I guess I’m human after all!
I love this post! I agree, the bloggers I’ve met in person have been wonderful. I think your last sentence says it all (and very eloquently, at that).
I am quite jealous of your pork bounty! MMMMMM, pig!
I am glad to have been your Ambassador of Clafoutis (that one looks beautiful), and just to have met for so many reasons. Thanks, Marilyn, for all the encouragement, the recipes, the friendship.
I am totally with you: I have made incredible friends through food blogging. Connect through food! I have finally met one internet friend (not food blogger, tho) and we got along like a house on fire! We found exactly what we expected to find. I think we do reveal our true selves on screen. And your deep-dish pizza looks fabulous and inspired tonight’s dinner chez moi! Thanks!
Such a delightful post.
Your Chicago pizza looks wonderful!
Your photography is fab and delicious.
Okay, did you eat the bacon plain? What did you put with it? I must know. And that pizza looks too good to be true.
Tell Cleo thank you for all the attention she gave me, I went to bed with properly licked legs and toes.
YUM~the pizza (well everything actually) looks divine! But, the pizza reminds me of my childhood, and my mom. This was before pizza became so popular; she had her own way of doing things, and her pizza’s were chocked full of goodness. Man, what I would do for some right here this minute, and it’s only 10 A.M.
Your blog is lovely. I’ll be back!!
(Found you through April)
Oh, Marilyn. You always make me cry. You’ll never know how much you – and your Baker’s Alphabet – mean to me. It was so hard not to be able to share what you gave to me, so now I get to make up for it by sharing your alphabet everywhere I can. Thank you for all the inspiration, my friend.
Hello and welcome, new voices, and welcome back, Miz Booshay! Always love to see you and your stupendous photographic talent.
I should note that this particular post touches on recent connections and the food between them – but there are loads more people I’ve been privileged to meet or talk with through Simmer, like Jean, and Jane, and Jenni (very Mousketeer-ish, no?) Also the fabulous Marion Roach, and Monica Bhide, and Gluten-Free Girl Shauna…you get the idea. Who’s next?
You voice is so comforting and you are the most amazing, giving spirit. I laugh at your wit, I love your posts. Makes me want to come to Kansas. Or, invite you to Arizona. Would love to cook with you, wouldn’t that be fun? Well, for one of us.
Maybe you should open a B&B for all the bloggers who want to visit and eat your food. If you do, promise me I can be the first guest?
You nailed it. New friends we have made, reconnection with old friends, and more connection with family, all through food blogging.
Even though I have not yet met any of my favorite fellow bloggers (FFB), I do know the day will come. If we share the same ideas about food, why wouldn’t be share the same little second thoughts about meeting in person for the first time??
Thank you for writing and sharing food and life things. You are one of my “FFB’s” I read, as I have my morning coffee. Keep up the good works! N
Sign me along with Jane…I’ll be happy to take that second guest spot.
Life imitates blogs…. Just yesterday I accidentally met in person for the first time a sweet friend I’d made over the interweb through blogging. It was eerie – we both instantly recognized the other although blog photos so rarely capture the “real” person…
It was odd having a real conversation, speaking without consideration for comment length (though clearly I tend to write long-winded). At one point we just stood there and smiled goofily at each other, and yet that silence was completely comfortable.
I suppose it boils down to that. Comfort. People feeling freed to be themselves, be real with who they are. And though not nearly so personal or touching as a wonderful alphabet tradition shared from mother extraordinaire to mother-to-be, isn’t comfort nearly the best gift ever?
Thanks for the introduction to all the lovely people. (& the comment shout out)
I need to try the clafouti.
Ack! Now that I’ve found you please lead me to the recipe for the nectarine and blueberry clafouti! I’ve searched your site and can’t find it – and on my do I ever want to make it. Yum!
All the things you are and “unruly-haired,” too? A model modern woman, I’d say. BTW, I’m about to take delivery on my yearly 1/2 organically-raised, butchered pig, so I love all the bacon talk, I do. Keep those recipes coming, sister. We’re eating ‘em up.
My internet life has been in many phases — it started off on a message board when I was planning my wedding (a long time ago now), and it morphed into a personal (password-protected) blog. It followed me from New York to Los Angeles and from the heady newlywed days into motherhood. And I’ve carried various relationships from screen to street. And I can say, now that my internet history is long, that I have met some of my dearest friends on the internet. It’s pretty awesome actually, to have the first meeting of someone you know so well and have that “I never imagined you were so tall!” turn into “But of course! How else would you be?”
Oooops. Ah, language. That comment just above should read, “on my yearly 1/2 pig, organically raised, locally butchered.” Ha! The way I wrote it is sounds like half of him was on one diet and the other, not so much. Ah, you gotta love words, you do. Forgive me.
Great post! I will one day get down there to drink a tall frosty beer with you, April & Rechelle. Till then, pizza recipe please!?!??!?!?
Very cool! I loved the Summer Fest stuff, what a fun event and you did Margaret’s recipe justice!
Lovely, and I concur: pizza recipe, please?
oh…Marilyn…I should not be lurking at lunch time…how about that pizza….wow!
Sweetheart, the next time you make deep dish, I’m not in your kitchen in spirit, I’m on a PLANE so I can be there with my whole, zaftig corporeal being to inhale some of that Lou Who-ever-he-is goodness. (I grew up a Giordano’s girl, myself.) Yours in pizza-loving sisterhood, Me.