I’m Not Going To Start The Next Awesome Cooking Blog
Sure I want to, but that isn’t the point
I love to cook. My mom taught me how to make her spaghetti sauce when I was 13 (that would be 35 years ago) and I never looked back. I still have my cheap, plastic recipe card box from 7th grade home economics (yes I can sew too) with all the silly Bisquick-powered recipes we learned. But this is different. I felt like I needed to expand. Do something with my writing and cooking. I thought, I should start a cooking and food blog. Won’t that be fun! Cooking, sharing, writing, cooking…maybe earn a little money from ads to fund my hobby.
But this morning I gave myself a shake and realized that if I started a cooking blog, sorry Jesse, it would be a huge mistake.
Let me explain.
In which Tris starts learning and cooking with abandon
I was laid off in October. Which sucks. On the plus side I’ve had a lot more time with my toddler and a lot more time to cook. Really cook. I’ve been binging with Babish. Getting gourmet with Gordon. And jonesing waiting for Chef John to post a new episode. I’ve stepped up my knife skills (and invested in a better one). I’ve worked on my sauté and pan flipping. My searing has been reversed for steak, and done right for chicken. My stock is clear and yummy (thank you Instant Pot…more on that in a moment). And I think I’ve almost got the perfect Boston Brown Bread (I think I need 2 1/2 hours cook time to make it awesome).
My family has been the beneficiaries of this effort. Not that my toddler eats all the stuff I make, at least my chicken is yummy. Like the spatchcocked whole chicken I have dry brining in the fridge to roast for dinner (which will be roasted on potatoes, carrots, celery, and onion by the way).
I’ve also been cooking with my Instant Pots (yes I have two, 8 and 6 quart models. No they aren’t scary. Yes I’ve made yogurt.) and I noticed that a lot of my geek friends also had Instant Pots. I created a little Geeks Who Cook messenger group and one of the first things that came up (I brought it up) was “man we could do a great cooking blog with all of us”.
Crickets.
I’m glad that discussion went nowhere.
Cooking is my last remaining passion I haven’t tried to commercialize
There is only one other hobby I’ve had longer than cooking and that’s photography. I’ve been doing it since around nine years old and it was something that just clicked with me (my dad was also a photographer). Photography became a way to express myself as an adult. Then I blew it. I turned my passion into something I did for money.
I tried being a professional event photographer. I hated it. Okay for a while I loved it, but man, then I hated it. I hated going to parties where I couldn’t talk with friends because I was working. I hated being the guy with the camera. I hated the pressure to get the awful posed shots people demand.
So I stopped.
I sold my extra camera body and some lenses. And I stopped taking pictures. Completely. I had burned the love out of capturing a moment. Playing with light. Getting the perfect image of someone. I still do headshots for friends and people I work with, but I won’t do it for money. I don’t advertise that I do it. If it comes up, I offer. That’s it. I rarely go on a photowalk. I even avoid bringing my “good” cameras with me to places. It’s a lot easier to use my iPhone than have to work with downloading photos and working with them on my laptop. The joy isn’t there when there is pressure to be awesome for other people.
Which brings me to this morning when I realized if I started a cooking blog I would kill everything I love about cooking.
Everything.
Cooking is my “me time”
I know I could create a great cooking blog. That isn’t the point. There are a ton of great cooking blogs out there, and I had to wonder what I could offer that’s new and different, but I figured I’d get an angle. Probably science or making geeky dishes. Something.
But it would take a lot of time. It would become work. I would need time to write witty posts, type out recipes (which is hard when I don’t cook with recipes all the time), and take amazing pictures of food. Everything would be more than I want to give.
I can’t be fully into my cooking, be happy smelling the aromas of what I’m making, if I’m always thinking about taking a great picture of the process. Taking notes to put into the post. Then editing photos. Then writing. Managing the site. And the ads (if I was going to do a food blog I was going to do it to fund my hobby).
No. Just no.
I cook to relax. I cook to unwind. I cook to express myself. I cook as an expression of love for my family. And I know that if I tried to be a food blogger, that would all be lost.
Gone.
And I’m not willing to sacrifice this passion for money.
Oh I’ll still post on Facebook
Just because I’m not going to get all bloggy with my cooking doesn’t mean I’m not going to post what I cook on Facebook on my own timeline or cooking groups. I’m too happy when something really works not to share it. Nor can I help answering questions about cooking or sharing recipes. I think helping and sharing is what truly passionate cooks do. You might not get some of my secret recipes — who am I kidding I don’t have secret recipes…yet — but I will share from the cookbooks I have and recipes I’ve stashed away over the years.
And I’m good with keeping my cooking casual. I need a hobby that’s mine. Fine, it’s an expensive one, but at least I eat what I make (even when it doesn’t turn out). I have nothing to prove. I don’t have an audience to worry about. I put food on the table and am happy when it tastes great.
Yeah, I’m good with that.
