Why Blog?

The easy answer is that everybody else is doing it, so why can't I (to cop a phrase from The Cranberies, which dates me immediately).

My best buddy David, obsessed as he is with the current electoral debacle, has parlayed his early righteous indignation into a well-received regular slot on the Huffington Post, where he manages to both vent his frustration and disbelief while simultaneously offering up well researched and articulate analysis.

My wife, a knitter of epic proportions, has a blog of her own (check out Rocketboyknits) in concert with her nascent business designing cool knitted kids clothing and toys.

Even my 8-year old son has his own iGoogle page, allowing him to chat in real time with grandparents on the other coast.

Blogging it seems has evolved quickly from a narcissistic construct of the fringes to a mainstream pastime, with no need for pretense or pretext. We no longer journal, we blog -- and thus throw our thoughts out there in real time without submitting ourselves to the arduous vetting process of annointed editors and publishers. The online world is our editorial committee, and our hit count the indicator of success or failure

Blog it, and they will come.

Which is why, on a rainy Seattle afternoon, I am sitting at the kitchen table. I can just pick up the slightly acrid aroma of the five pounds of tomatoes I am smoking outside over hickory chips, destined for soup tonight. The tomatoes came primarily from a plant named "Bob", lovingly hand-raised in our tiny front yard by my elder son. The woodsmoke and the damp air comingle and remind me of autumn back in Maine, from whence I moved nearly ten years ago to pursue a chef's career in the region's finest hotel kitchen. I think upon my favorite food writers over the years -- John Thorne, A.J. Liebling, Anthony Bourdain -- and wonder what they would make of all this. Would Liebling have blogged, given the chance? We can only imagine, wistfully, that he had.

So be forewarned -- this is not a straight-up food blog. You will find precious little in the way of recipes (I don't generally use them), not much in the way of restaurant reviews (We don't have the time or spare cash to eat out), and maybe the occasional consideration of a seasonal highlight or a great meal cooked for the family. You are just as likely to encounter a treatise on rebuilding the starter on a 1976 BMW motorcycle, or a description of the organized chaos that defines a top-flight luxury hotel kitchen firing on all cylinders. This is my attempt to connect the various dots in my life, to find the correspondances as Baudelaire would have it, that somehow make it all a whole.

So you have been duly cautioned. I will knowingly make too many literary and historical references -- such is the fate of a liberal arts major too long strayed from the fold. I will rhapsodize about my children and my motorcycle, not necessarily in that order. I will bemoan the sixteen-hour days in the kitchen which seem to be status quo for me right now, contemplate carreer changes, and try very hard not to incriminate myself in any way.

On the flip side, I can promise regular infusions of the outright absurdity which characterizes the daily operations of a five-star hotel, some potentially useful technical information with regards to gastronomy, and the perspective born of ten years slugging it out in the culinary trenches. And along the way, you might just learn how to rebuild a carburetor, so read on