The Mighty (and Creative) Cheese Sandwich
Mexican tuna melt with goat cheese and pico de gallo.
Sometimes the timing is just perfect. Take today’s random link hop, for example. In it, I stumbled across this terrific piece titled How To Be Creative (The Long Version) over on Hugh Macleod’s most excellent blog, gapingvoid. Yes, he’s the guy who’s doing that cool Geek Dinner (with free wine) thing mentioned over at Food Blog S’cool.
Here are three of my favorite snippets from How To Be Creative:
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
Nobody can tell you if what you’re doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is.9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don’t make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow-line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
This is equally true in art and business. And love. And sex. And just about everything else worth having.
(Oh, just go read it. It’s great stuff.)
Point is, since I’m in the middle of a (long overdue) redesign of the site, and I’m in Brainstorm Central for new Belly Timber-related projects, this resonates. Oh, how it resonates.
And, I think it’ll resonate with a great many fellow food bloggers now that we’re in the middle of the Great Cheese Sandwich Controversy of 2006, because what is this all about if not celebrating our diversity to blog about food any damn which way we want to — including singing praises to the Mighty Cheese Sandwich?
Non-bloggers (and yeah, I’m generalizing a teensy bit) don’t get it. They seem to think we’re all on the same page. We all want to put up a professional front. We all want attention from the print media. We’re all gunning for that elusive golden ring of getting noticed or better yet, landing that coveted book contract. (Silly non-bloggers; such a narrow view.) Truth is, many of us are here for the fun, or for the community, or (to steal from Alton Brown) we’re just here for the food.
Some of us are professional creative types in our other lives; some not. Some of us know full well what it’s like to be on the receiving end of criticism (hell, someday let me dig up the snarkfest of a review I received for my production of Titus Andronicus; it’s got serious trash-the-director entertainment value); some of us are new to it. No matter. If we didn’t think we could handle criticism with grace, or humor, or snark or however we damn well please to handle it, we wouldn’t be here, would we?
Which brings me to my fourth wonderful snippet from How To Be Creative:
19. Sing in your own voice.
Picasso was a terrible colorist. Turner couldn’t paint human beings worth a damn. Saul Steinberg’s formal drafting skills were appalling. TS Eliot had a full-time day job. Henry Miller was a wildly uneven writer. Bob Dylan can’t sing or play guitar.But that didn’t stop them, right?
Exactly. (And oh lord, do I agree about Dylan…)
Point is, not all of us are skilled bloggers. We’ve got strong points; we’ve got weak points. I suck ass at restaurant reviews, and I don’t particularly like describing how food tastes because I am terrified of the bad Iron Chef Judge food cliché. (”Oh, this dish is so profound! The flavors in my mouth — they make me so happy!”)
(That’s three gulps in the Iron Chef Drinking Game, right there, by the way.)
Some of us are still learning how to take decent food photos. Some of us are timid in the kitchen and stick to the strict following of tried-and-true cookbook recipes. Is that wrong? Is that bad?
More importantly, is it a reason for us to give up blogging?
(Obvious answer: hell no. We blog for ourselves, first, dammit.)
Anyway, I’d have lots more to say on this, but Chopper’s due home from work and he’s going to be awfully grumpy if I don’t spiff up and resize all those photos I took of what we ate for dinner.
February 12th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
I just have to tell you how much I agree with what you are writing here! Why are we not just allowed to ENJOY ourselves writing our food blogs without being judged for how it’s done? I’m sure that is one of the main reasons people are doing it for; enjoying the process of cooking, enjoying communicating with other food lovers, enjoying taking photos, enjoying being creative. And enjoying the occasional cheese sandwich!
February 13th, 2006 at 12:25 am
Amen, Sister! :G: Blogs are journals. Because they’re on the Internet, they’re open for criticism, but they are still journals, and, so, personal. Cheese sandwich, anyone?
February 13th, 2006 at 12:51 am
Y’know, one day, the kids are going to ask us - where were you in the Great Cheese Sandwich Controversy of 2006?
February 13th, 2006 at 1:56 am
I don’t even like tuna (unless it is in sashimi form) but that looks quite tempting! I love how you have presented it. Ilva and you are setting that bar now. This is really getting me hungry.
February 13th, 2006 at 3:04 am
I could eat that sandwich right now, and it’s 5:59 a.m.
I really like that creativity essay — it’s quite inspirational. And yeah, if we all sang in the same voice — zzzzz. It’s all about finding our own voices. I know I’ve been guilty of trying to sound like someone else in my writing, but the stuff I like best is the stuff where I feel like I’ve really created and utilized my own unique weirdness.
February 13th, 2006 at 3:52 am
Praise the Mighty Cheese Sandwich! Amen. And now let us sing :)
February 13th, 2006 at 5:31 am
Isn’t Gaping Void just a fascinating blog? It was one of the first blogs I ever read, back when my brother told me I should start a blog to share my recipes, and I actually had no idea what he was talking about!
The sandwich looks great. I love a little cheese with my sandwiches.
February 13th, 2006 at 6:01 am
I’m thinking that Feb xxth — let’s say the 16th — becomes an annual celebration among food bloggers, marking their roots, taking stock, an epiphanous (ok that’s my word brain getting over creative) experience. But OH there I go again! Wanting to ritualize, organize!! Nicely, please, Mrs D, remind me of the joy of anarchy? (PS You know, really, don’t you, that I completely 100% totally meant it when I said yesterday I was nicely chastised? Since things have gotten a litte riled, just want you to know that with confidence!)
February 13th, 2006 at 10:36 am
It is quite clear to me now that I am the blog reincarnation of TS Eliot. I almost picked the Wasteland for the poetry version of EOMEOTE, because it is one of my favourite poems. Obviously Mr Eliot didn’t have to work weekends.
February 13th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Mrs D-I got your tag; creted this: http://cyndicooks.blogspot.com/2006/02/lets-have-fun-with-new-meme.html
I think you’ll get a laugh out of it!
February 13th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
created, dummy (me)
February 14th, 2006 at 7:41 am
“There is no one youer than you.”
-Dr. Seuss
February 14th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Mrs D, I couldn’t agree with you more! The blogs I return to time and again are those that separate themselves in some way from the masses–especially if that involves some kind of crazy rant! :-D
February 14th, 2006 at 9:48 am
“I suck ass at restaurant reviews, and I don’t particularly like describing how food tastes because I am terrified of the bad Iron Chef Judge food cliché. (”Oh, this dish is so profound! The flavors in my mouth — they make me so happy!”)”
LOL! That could have been me saying that. In fact, I shy away from reviewing *any* creative pursuit, because what I write always seems to devolve into the Happy Flavors cliché.
Thanks for a post that made me feel more comfortable in my own skin. :-)
February 14th, 2006 at 11:16 am
Hey, thanks everyone! I do hope you all zipped over to Gaping Void to read that post — the inspiration for anything I wrote is all there. And, yes, Kalyn, it’s a terrific blog. I love the business card art.
Jen’s mom, that Seuss quote is great!
We’re in swampy-busy land today so forgive me if I’m not more chatty (or profound — hah!) in my comments! More posting later (including chocolate from Chopper that is TO DIE FOR).
February 14th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
What a hilarious idea to make this an annual event! Blogstock, anyone?
February 15th, 2006 at 6:34 am
I think Cheese Sandwich man is saying “sing in your own voice” as well - he just doesn’t like many voices! Or maybe he just doesn’t recognize them as voices. Poor guy, either way.
February 17th, 2006 at 7:17 am
Beautifully written. I raise my grilled pesto and cheese pita to you in fond salute!
February 17th, 2006 at 7:51 am
I think that what cheesed me off the most was that just because Wells doesn’t care to know what someone had for lunch, he assumes that the rest of the world would agree with him.
It is pretty obvious to me, from looking at my readership and the readership of other blogs, that this is simply not the case.
Not everyone who reads food blogs is a food blogger, so not only were food bloggers insulted, but so were readers of food blogs.
This is where I think he went awry–and this is where I think a lot of people who are professional food writers for glossies go awry: they are writing for a particular audience that values particular things, and if you are not part of that audience, then you are not valued.
Food is universal, people. It is not “owned” by the gourmets, the foodies and the snobs of the world. Everybody eats, and apparently, lots of everybodies want to know what everybody else is eating.
I would like to remind Mr. Wells, and the editors of the glossies and all of the food snobs who look down on “the common folk” that Food & Wine, Gourmet and Bon Appetit are not the food magazines with the highest circulation in the US.
Not hardly.
The magazine with the highest circulation is Taste of Home, which consists primarily of recipes sent in by readers–home cooks from across the country. It accepts no advertising, because it doesn’t need to–it is completely reader-supported.
And its circulation figures blow the other glossies, all of whom are ad-heavy, out of the water.
What does this say?
That there is a significant portion of the country who don’t care for opinions like Mr. Wells’ nor do they care about what the glossy magazine arbiters of taste have to say about food.
They just care about food that is good, and how to make it.
People who read food blogs, I think of as being akin to the readers of Taste of Home.
Some of us care about different things than Wells.
And that is okay–there is room enough in the world for us all.
February 17th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Barbara said:
Food is universal, people. It is not “owned” by the gourmets, the foodies and the snobs of the world.
YES! YES! YES!
That really is at (or at least near) the root of all this, isn’t it? Fear of dilution of their precious, rarified air. The snobbiest of gourmets have claimed food for their own and none dare sully their territory.
A few years back I saw this same paranoia and outrage at the start of the digital art era, when professional 35mm photographers were up in arms over upstarts with digital cameras, and illustrators were throwing hissy fits over common folks with no professional training landing design gigs because they were skilled in Illustrator and Photoshop.
More recently, it’s been network & print politicos going batshit pissy over political blogs. How dare they — those amateurs — tread all over our elite territory! Surely, they can’t actually have valid, well-formed opinions?
In the publishing world, it’s (gasp! horror!) print-on-demand, and authors who dare reject the traditional route and publish their works online instead — and with (more gasp! more horror!) a Creative Commons license, no less. Good lord, what is this world coming to?
Well, it’s the internet era reaching full bloom, kids. Or Web 2.0 as the Big Geeks like to call it. It’s community, it’s access, and it’s everyone with an internet connection (or hell even occasional access to an internet cafe or a public library) getting their say.
The web isn’t about experts pontificating and the rest of us sitting back and saying “oooh, I could never do that” or worse, “I should never do that.” It’s about conversation. It’s about expressing yourself no matter where you’re at.
I’ve got a friend who, with her sense of humor and story-telling skills, could run bloggy circles around half the dull, self-important gourmets who think the web should only experience their level of cuisine. She’s not a great photographer just yet, and she’s only an assistant in the kitchen, not a head chef, but boy can she tell stories and draw great pictures.
And, despite the fact that she’s just seven-years-old, and probably can’t spell worth a damn, I’d take her blog over Snobby Gourmet’s blog any day.