- He thinks that what I have to say is fascinating and that I ought to share it with the rest of the world.
- He thinks that what I have to say is getting really old and irritating and wishes I'd vent it out of my system on the web so that he doesn't have to hear it anymore.
The title of this blog is The Pessimist's Cookbook. Which of the above two explanations I am leaning towards will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Who are you then?
That question most likely doesn't need to be answered. You are here at my blog; that means that you can correctly spell my name; and that means that you're probably related to me. Lori Caeng... Seangi... Ceange... call me Tildy. For now. I will tell you more later, when you've proven that you want to know.
Pessimist?
Indeed. I officially come out of the closet and declare that I am a devout pessimist, impressively steadfast in my adherance to Murphy's Law and my conviction that everything will go down the pisser in much more creative ways than you've ever thought of. If you've ever read How to talk Minnesotan then you know that giving a thought to the worst-case-scenario is a time-honored emotional survival technique among my people. But wait -- we decided that you're probably related to me. This means you knew this already; that I am the local champion in competitive måla fan på väggen. But on the off chance that you are a person that doesn't share genes or maritally binding relations with me, what I'm trying to say is that some posts in this blog may be very negative, misanthropic and generally not very uplifting. Unless, of course, you are of a similar bent -- us types know for sure that misery loves company. A more specific warning is that some posts will inevitably revolve around a recent source of severe grief in my life, a late miscarriage we suffered in April while 4 months pregnant with what would have been our first child, and our attempts to get pregnant again.
Cookbook?
I'm not really as bad as all that. Some people might be downright surprised at the suggestion that there is actually a vitriolic people-hater under this milquetoast exterior. Well, it comes in waves, and between you and me, I'd love for the happy-positive-I-like-puppies-and-butterflies waves to be much more frequent. There are things and people that I love to see and do and talk about and that fill me up again when I'm feeling empty. What I really love the most, I've learned, is taking care of people. I love to be the one that brings an aspirin and a glass of water to my husband when he's got a headache. I love to be the one that has too much to do because I'm helping other people with their work. I love teaching people things so much that the word "love" is inadequate.
Those of you who have read How to talk Minnesotan, here comes your advantage again -- taking care of people, to me, has a whole lot to do with feeding them. It's become my hobby to plan meals and weekly menus (my husband might call it an obsessive-compulsive fixation, but I fail to see the difference) and, after losing over 35 kilos and still working on losing some more, I'm also very interested in constantly improving the nutritional quality of the food we eat and making sure we take care of our bodies. So I figured -- hey. That's what I could write about. Food, recipes, nutrition, losing weight. I'm not going to say here that I'm a really good cook, but I think I'm a person with an interest in cooking and a few nifty kitchen tricks that is on her way to becoming a really good cook. And I actually think that I know enough about "nutrition for the non-hippy" that I could teach other people about it. Although I am kind of a hippy. Sort of. To some people.
Fredrik?
So there you have two of the three most prevalent themes in my life. Cynicism and food. (Or did I mean right-wing type misanthropism and bleeding heart leftist hippiness? More on that later.) What's number three? That's my husband, Fredrik, of course. A man so infuriatingly positive and uninterested in baked goods that one can wonder why I moved across the Atlantic Ocean in order to build a life with him. The way to his heart might have been through his stomach, but it took me a while to figure out that it was a route better traveled by meat than by cakes and pies.
All of these three themes in my life are intertwined. I need to continue taking good care of myself and providing my body with quality fuel, nutrients and exercise in order to improve our chances for a successful pregnancy next time. My love of taking care of people (and feeding them) makes me more and more anxious to add a person to our family. And of course, Fredrik is the reason both for my desire to have a baby and my love of cooking. My father-in-law, who is the very talented cook in his household, apparently eats macoroni and falukorv (for you non-Swedes, it's about as classy as Kraft Mac n' Cheese) when my mother-in-law or anyone else isn't around for him to cook for. I totally get that. It's all about taking care of people.
No comments:
Post a Comment