Food + Words = Blog Baby

I'm just going to go ahead and do it. As people say, there's no right time to make a baby...and maybe the same holds for one's own blog. So, with enthusiasm and trepidation, welcome to Food and Paper.

For today, some initial musings: One of the nice things about food -- buying it, preparing it, and eating it -- is its ephemeral nature. Food is there on the counter, on the stove, in hand, disappearing into mouth, tasted, relished, or gobbled down quickly, and then it's gone. And the whole act must be repeated again within hours. I've become addicted to the pleasure of knowing that we cannot be filled. And so, as long as we have bodies, the gastronomic anticipations, the search for new tastes and textures, the multiple combinations of dining places and companions... it need never end.

And so, writing about and photographing food seem to be enterprises in making indelible what is wonderfully fleeting. Yet, readers, this is what I want to do. I've got an itch to marry my affection for stable words and images to my promiscuous culinary escapades.

Here, though, is where I wonder whether this marriage has always already existed. Words are not constant, and a glass of good wine need not be sipped into oblivion. I've chewed on certain texts until I was sure I had my fill, only to return to them again. I've often been left hungry by a photo, no matter how many times I've fed on its every detail. A certain dinner of tomatoes and salt has left an unerasable imprint on me. I'm certain, moreover, I've read unforgettable stories on dinner plates. And things always taste better when words are shared.