I resist online food writing for a variety of reasons: laziness, fear of inadequacy, actual inadequacy. I also resist because I’m no fan of following (or testing) recipes and because, well, I don’t believe there are real answers to anything; whatever I think today, I may just change my mind tomorrow.

That said, I am creating this space to write about food, and, with luck, to read what you, my mysterious yet possible audience, think about food, because food is one of my favorite things. You won’t find many painstaking recipes here. I hope you’ll find instead something to ponder and, perhaps, some inspiration.

That said, here are some things I think today, and will probably think tomorrow, about food & cooking:

Food connects. If I trace dinner far enough back, I find myself contemplating soil organisms and what feeds them. If I trace dinner wide enough, I find the cultures across the globe that influenced this recipe, or that use of a utensil. Every time I cook, I am linked back through the generations of everyone who has cooked. I am linked to everyone at my table and everyone sharing a table with others, across the globe. Much depends on dinner*.

There is no absolute right. This is true both for how we cook, and for how we eat. Yes, there are the ways things have been done and mostly worked out for most people. There are chemical reactions in baking that are fairly reliable. There are rules; those rules are generally breakable. There is huge variation in what produce tastes like, in how baked goods react to the weather, in what we can afford (not just in terms of money, but also time and effort). There is huge variation in what nourishes us. There is huge variation in what we like.

Every choice I make (about food, about anything) has some angle I haven’t considered, some piece of information I acted without or in spite of. Every area is a grey area. There is always more to learn. I still have to eat, though. I have to decide (over and over and over again). I do what I can, when I can, and I try to let the rest go. There is no perfect.

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*“Much Depends on Dinner” is the title of a book by Margaret Visser which I haven’t read, but probably would love.