Why My Kitchen isn't Smitten

Kili, let me just tell you why I couldn't ever run a food blog. In 9th grade, I cried because the nose on the ceramic bust I was making didn't look right. I have spent hours on a pie crust, only to drop the finished product at the foot of the stairs. To this day, I still won't let Ian tell me how funny it was. I get irrationally upset if my bread doesn't rise, and I haven't the patience to wait until the sage-pumpkin filling cools down before dolloping it on the ravioli dough, resulting in a sticky hot mess (sound familiar, Kili?) of pasta dough and sweet-smelling pumpkin goo--not in ravioli. A dropped stitch in a knit hat is enough to ruin my day, and the fact that the pair of gloves I knitted Ian requires some serious prodding to look like an actual pair of gloves still makes me wince. I can't remember a meal I've served that wasn't followed by, "needs salt" or "a little too dry" or some other critique that I myself made. In short, I am a perfectionist, which you already well knew.

But possibly more important than that, I forget about the process. I am too wrapped up in cooking, in creating, to stop and arrange the bowl artfully on the counter, and think of some glib remark that I might pair with the photo on next week's post. Rather, I knead the bread. I chop the shallots and cry onto the cutting board (omitting the need for salt further on...). I pop the dish into the oven, thinking only of the finished product, the plate of food I'm about to eat. And that's when I remember to take the picture--when I've got a counterful of bagels, or a steaming bowl of mussels sitting in front of me.

Perhaps what I need is an assistant, Kili. Someone to come over and remember that the dough should be photographed as well as the bagel, that the closed mussel pre-steaming would juxtapose quite nicely with the wide open mouths of the mussels in the bowl. Maybe then I'll be able to blog with as much sass as smittenkitchen, with the parsimonious prose of orangette, and have the photos to boot. Maybe then I wouldn't have to throw out a bowlful of mussels just because Ian and I had eaten ourselves silly and couldn't bear anymore. If you're willing to learn photography, the jobs is yours.