Hmmm… my plan to write about food and therefore garner a ton of new readers hasn’t panned out thus far. Maybe I should change my name to Michael Pollan? Anyway, moving on…

Day 2. Your favorite sweet dish.

Don’t ask! No, let me explain. I was a latchkey kid; my mom and dad both worked full time, and my younger sister and I came home every day and let ourselves into an empty house, at which point she promptly started talking on the phone until dinner time, and I started baking. Once I figured out a few recipes, I realized pretty young that I had a talent for pastries, cookies, cakes and pies, and the advantage of baking in the afternoons was that I could then devour whatever I’d made before anyone else could (I had a hell of a metabolism back then). In the 70s and 80s, upper class aspirational California was pretty much defined by Sunset magazine, which I pick up occasionally at my therapist’s office and think is so bourgeois precious it makes my stomach hurt. But my mom loved it, and it had recipes — fairly complex ones, from what I recall. This was the equivalent to throwing down the gauntlet in my pre-teen/teen baking years. So, this orange cake has thirty five ingredients? Whatever, Sunset. You can’t keep me down! And I’d make a huge fucking mess and something delicious.

To this day, I find baking more relaxing than meditation or long walks or whatever people do to relax. My husband jokes that when he hears the mixer starting up late at night, he knows I need to wind down. But my current challenge is how to get rid of stuff I bake; I can’t eat entire cakes anymore, and ever since a colleague referred to my offering baked goods to students as kissing their asses for good evaluations, I don’t bring them treats anymore. Often I just pack stuff up and hand it off to a homeless person. So baking becomes a social service, and that’s better than wasting the stuff.

Favorites, though? A good chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. Anything lime/lemon based. Dark chocolate chunk cookies with pecans, dried cherries and sea salt. Zucchini bread. Apricot bars. Bueberry pie. And a million more.

Although I am juggling multiple writing projects at the moment, nothing’s on a hard deadline and I have really been feeling slack about not blogging regularly here or at the place where I (slack on) group blog(ging), WeWhoAreAboutToDie. So I’m ripping this meme off of several people. I mean, shamelessly, everybody seems to be writing and reading books about food (except me), so maybe I’m just attention whoring. We’ll see how long this lasts; I may just answer the whole thing in one shot if I get bored with it. Is there anything you think I should be blogging about instead? If so, please let me know here, on Facebook, via email, etc.

Day 1. Any dietary restrictions?

Not so much restrictions as much as preferences, i.e. I will not fucking touch mayonnaise, pickles, beets, that yellow mustard that comes in squirt bottles (dijon is fine), soy milk, soy cheese, innards, veal, lamb, rabbit or most alcohol. These are primarily about being grossed out (what is the purpose of mayonnaise? why do pickles smell like Satan’s boogers?), but also a little bit about not eating things that are cute (I can’t even eat chocolate Easter bunnies or Peeps). Soy milk and most soy products make me bloat like a beached seal. But even though I have acid reflux, I still eat everything on the list my doctor gave me of foods to avoid. Life is short, and Zantac works great.

Day 2. Your favorite sweet dish.
Day 3. Your favorite savory dish.
Day 4. Your preferred degree of spiciness.
Day 5. Your signature dish.
Day 6. Are/were you a picky eater?
Day 7. Your favorite fruit.
Day 8. Your preferred cooking technique.
Day 9. The kitchen of your dreams.
Day 10. Your favorite local fast food place.
Day 11. Your favorite snack.
Day 12. Your favorite fast food dish.
Day 13. The first dish you’ve ever prepared.
Day 14. Your favorite vegetable.
Day 15. Your most spectacular cooking failure.
Day 16. Your favorite food preparation utensil.
Day 17. Meals planned in advance or spur-of-the-moment ideas?
Day 18. The favorite dish of your childhood.
Day 19. Least favorite dish.
Day 20. A food preparation secret you’d like to learn.
Day 21. Your favorite dairy product.
Day 22. Variety or routine?
Day 23. Your favorite herb[s] and spice[s].
Day 24. Your favorite local restaurant.
Day 25. Haute cuisine or home cooking?
Day 26. If money was of no concern, would your eating habits change?
Day 27. Your usual way of dealing with leftovers.
Day 28. Your favorite beverage on a hot summer day.
Day 29. Lots of small snacks or three square meals a day?
Day 30. Are you comfortable with your relationship with food?

Tuesday, I turned in grades. Today, I returned the pile of library books I’d checked out over the course of the semester (dangerously, Berkeley faculty are allowed to keep books checked out for a year, which means I often find books about topics I was researching months ago scattered in odd corners around the house). Today, I’m doing laundry, trying to get it up on the line on one of the first sunny days we’ve seen in this freakishly rainy and clammy month of May.  And making granola. And yogurt. And walking around barefoot.

It’s summer.

Hopefully, I’ll find out whether or not my new book proposal has found a home sometime soon, but in the meantime, I am selfishly and happily digging into research for it anyway. At this point, if it doesn’t find a home, it’s likely I’ll be trying to publish portions of it in essay form, and who knows, maybe I’ll put some of it up here. Meanwhile, this summer I’ll once again be working doing Grove Talks at Cal Shakes (imagine what a museum docent does, but with plays). They’re doing Steinbeck, Shaw, and the two Shakespeares: The Scottish Play and Much Ado.

I came here intending to write a long blog about entering into the last remaining months of my thirties and all the shit that goes along with that, and you know what? I don’t really care. Years ago, a writer friend and I had a long conversation during which we discovered that most of our favorite mutual writers didn’t start writing anything interesting until they were in their forties, and I long ago gave up trying to be conventionally attractive (actually, I never tried; it’s just impossible in my case), so a few new folds and wrinkles and gray hairs are really, in the long run — not a big deal. Really, my teaching career, the books and essays I hope to write, my relationships with other people… these things all outweigh the fact that I was born in 1971. That’s just another date on the calendar.

Of course, I may be sounding different about this come January, but I’m hatching plans to be in a foreign country for that particular date, one where (as my friend L says) they “revere older women”. And preferably don’t speak English at all.