Raisin d'etre

Okay, I'm here because of Muriel Cormican. Not because she's my mother -- god knows I have enough mothers already, and then some -- but because last night she said: Oh, you should start a food blog. You're already doing that on Facebook anyway, so you might as well just migrate all that stuff over into a blog. Then Maria Doyle (search her name on this page) said something about long statuses full of food information. And then there was the quasi-complaining about my FB notes full of recipes.

Well, who could resist such blandishments? Particularly on a belly full of roast turkey marinated in butter and wine, herbed with thyme, tarragon, garam masala. Not to mention the spicy cornbread-apple-walnut-soysage stuffing, the tarragon and butter braised snap beans, the biscuits and cornbread and all the stuff that goes with it. We were heady with tryptophen, giddy with orange cranberries and vanilla whipped cream, high on dairy and Muriel's rum cake (hey, Muriel, cough up that recipe, wouldja?).

Which means this might be a bad idea. We'll know in a month or so.

So here are the rules, subject to change with notice:

1. I cook like I cook: largely without recipes and without measuring. I'll provide recipes when I'm sure I'm not violating someone's copyright; otherwise, you can just watch and figure it out.
2. I am relatively poor and utterly disinterested in hip cuisine. This is usually because hip cuisine costs too much and often doesn't deliver in taste. I don't need specially strangled mongoose from Burma if I can get a really tasty apple. What I do is, metaphorically speaking, biscuits. Just. biscuits.
3. Except for some very special baked goods, if it isn't my version of easy, I don't make it.
4. I am a fowletarian. I eat no red meat or fish. This is because it's expensive and I don't like the taste (meat); and because it's expensive, tastes bad, I live where it's landlocked so nothing's fresh, and I'm allergic (fish). Mostly I cook vegetarian. Thus, what you'll get is non-meat-oriented food.
5. I am a big, strong, middle-aged woman (not Paula Deen who is totally non-threatening -- more like someone's 45-year-old Sicilian grandmother who raised seven very good boys). I like food. With some exceptions, I use the real stuff. If you're interested in making my food, but want to substitute, go ahead. Write me and let me know how that works out.

Here we go.