To blog or not to blog?

I realize that's the second botched Shakespeare reference I've made in almost as many blog posts. Or, at least it was when I drafted this. Sorry Willy, please don't hate me. Literature mangling aside, the quote does lend itself well to the question I've asked myself since deciding to start this blog: why?

I've always been a fan of writing, and I'm the sort of person who wears her heart on her sleeve, so why haven't I ever blogged "sucessfully" before? I.e. why have at least four previous blog attempts gone by the wayside under my various pseudonyms, none of them ever more than a background and title or in the case of one, one little post, before they each were deleted? Well, here are my top 5 reasons of why I never blogged before now.

Reason # 1: Bloggers in Pop Culture

I suspect neither of the following commercial and film conversations have helped my view on blogging:

Thanks Twix, though you are a scrumptious candy bar, you have made bloggers, particularly female ones, out to be complete idiots incapable of realizing that when a guy asks her back to his apartment five seconds into their first conversation his sudden "chew it over" moment and subsequent (lame) excuse is really a flimsy facade for "please have sex with me."

[[[[[[[Excerpt from the transcript of Made of Honor (2008)]]]]]]]

Tom: Oh, God. Hide me.

Hannah: What?

Tom: It's my dad's patient coordinator...

Yeah, don't look, don't look. Don't look.

No, no. She's obsessed with me.

Yeah, she's created a website called AllThingsTom.org.

Hannah: The psycho blogger?

Tom: Yes.

Okay, come on.

Dance with me. Watch yourself.

Hannah: I think she's cute.

Tom: Oh, stop it.

I'm serious. Just keep going. Here just-

Hide me…

Her last blog was a two-page description of my face.

Blogger: Hi, Tom.

Tom: Oh, hi.

Blogger: Did you see the new blog?

Tom: Uh, no, we haven’t.

Blogger: Who’s this?

Tom: This? Well, this is my… girlfriend.

Blogger: Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone?

Tom: Because I don’t know you.

Hannah: Look, we have a really really open relationship.

Tom: Really? You know, I wanted to talk to you about that, princess.

Blogger: Princess…?

Tom: (to Hannah) I-I-I don’t wanna be with anybody but you.

Hannah: I don’t know if I’m really quite ready to make that commitment. You know my rules

(to Blogger) We’re a bit of an emotional retard.

Tom: Yeah.

Blogger: I think I need to start a new blog now.

Hannah: (after Blogger has left) That is so scary.

[[[[[[]]]]]]]

I apologize for having no video clip to illustrate this, there wasn’t one to be found on youtube. (le gasp)

This is the second media source that immediately came to my mind that makes female bloggers (pattern? I wouldn't know, I nixed my communications major a year ago...) out to be complete idiots. The blogger in Made of Honor is of the desperate and pathetic variety of idiots. It doesn't help my feeling for this clip that the woman is literally wearing the exact dress I wore in a play my Senior year of high school.

Reason #2: That word!

I hate the words blog, blogger, and blogging. I really do. The word, stripped of its connotations and denotations still makes me cringe. Some words do that for me. Blog and it’s derivatives are some of them. You may consider this a flimsy reason for not blogging before. Alone it's not enough of one. In addition to my already formed stigma against blogging, it was another hair that broke the camel's back.

Reason # 3: People in glass houses shouldn't throw things, I wouldn't live in one in the first place.

My writing is often times a reflection of who I am. I put pieces of myself into it, like horcruxes only I don't kill people or split my soul to do it. If you haven't read Harry Potter, ignore that reference. As such, I've never been one to want the whole world to see inside me. While I do wear my heart on my sleeve, there's a difference between that and what inspires my writing--the writing often comes from much deeper down.

Reason #4: Themeless and therefore pointless?

My life has no particular theme, my sense of humor isn’t always one that draws a ton of laughs, I’m lazy and impatient in one messy bunch, and I lose focus fairly easily on things. In short, I never thought a blog of mine would be very interesting, nor did I think I would I be willing (or have the attention span) to keep it up.

Reason #5: I sat and tried to think of one. One flitted by but I forgot it before I had time to jot it down. I went back and adjusted some of the previous ones and still couldn't think of a number five. So that's only four reasons. Which leads me to...

"You know Thomas Edison tried and failed nearly two-thousand times to develop the carbonized cotton-thread filament for the incandescent light bulb. When asked about it, he said 'I didn't fail, I found two-thousand ways how not to make a light bulb.' But he only needed to find one way to make it work."

-National Treasure, 2004

What was the one way I found that changed my mind about blogging? It was actually a memory, a memory of something a very dear woman once told me.

It’s funny, how one can be reminded randomly of something most would consider minute or not worth remembering, particularly from one's childhood. I find that especially true if the memories involve a loved one who is no longer with us. I suppose we hang on to even the shreds of memories with them because that’s all we have left.

My Aunt D and I once talked about diaries. I said something to the effect that while I admired Anne Frank's diary, I don't have the patience to write one myself. All of my attempts usually ended with me tearing out the few entries and pitching them. Most usually ended with my selecting a pretty journal, buying it, bringing it home, then setting it aside to collect dust. I have a box of empty journals and notebooks solely from this habit to prove my point. Sound familiar? Well, my Aunt suggested that I start typing my daily diary entries. Mind you this was back in the day when blogging and any other form of social interaction/broadcasting via the internet was strictly limited to e-mail. But her suggestion was to type my diary and save the entries in a folder on the computer. The only problem with this was my family had a public computer which sat in my parent's room. The issue was twofold. One, it lacked the privacy I preferred when storing my entries and I didn't feel like keeping a floppy disk (yes, floppy disks were around). The second issue was timing, I was a night owl (still am, time check? It's 1:11 AM) and my parents weren't. At least not both of them. There was only a limited time during the day which I could even use the computer. So the suggestion, while highly appreciated, didn't come to fruition.

Side note: Pictured is my Aunt D with me around 2 years old. I suspect our diary conversation came a little later in life; this is the only picture I have with just her and me in it. Momma and I were going through some old family albums at my Gpa's recently and came across it. It brought tears to my eyes how happy we both look.

Anyways, at least ten years down the road now, I can't help but think that blogging is the more modern version of what my dear aunt was talking about: a place to write out whatever it is I want to write about, without hand writing it. Blogging seems to take that one step further by giving you the concept of a literary third wall. Instead of just talking to myself or "my dear diary," I can envision readers whom I am talking to. It's not as strange for me to involve the potential readers (however many) as it is for me to involve an inanimate diary in an animate activity, such as cooking.

What got my gears rolling was that post I made about the Strawberry Cream Pie. That was actually my first blog post I'd made in a long time and I made it originally for a friend of mine to feature it as a guest entry on her blog. By the time I'd finished it, I located this blog I'd made months prior and revamped it. The rest is history. Literally. It's in the archives.

Verdict: to blog! I just want a new word for it. Oh well.

Signed,

RF

College student by day, closet cook by night

In spirit of my new "take life by the reins" (or whatever) attitude, I made a spur of the moment decision the other day to make a pie. Stay tuned for the story and the pie making itself. If you just want to hear about the delicious pie (it was delicious) then just scroll your happy self down a bit. For those who are left, here I go.

This post is actually a recycled post I wrote to feature as a guest writer on a friend of mine's blog. At the time my own blog was naked and shivering in the nether lands of the web and I didn't feel like retrieving it. I've since reconciled myself to the idea of blogging and thus my blog is nice and toasty on my bookmark bar.

Yes, cooking was one of those "cans of paint" I've been admiring (see my previous, and first, post). It's actually something I've done sporadically, without a whole lot of thought, for a while and I have to say I feel that I can hold my own with most recipes.

About a month or so now, said friend (the one with the blog?), we'll call her Lakota, introduced me to the website of a woman known as the Pioneer Woman. Her real name is Ree Drummond and her full story can be found on her site. Do me a favor, take that link really quickly...bookmark the site and tag as "awesome site I will get addicted to"...then return here. PW.com is chalk full of recipes and gardening happenings and all sorts of other goodies and it will take positively hours, nay days to get through it all. Okay weeks. Don't even get me started on her real life love story. Oh. my. It's going to be a book, apparently. She also has a cookbook out. It can be found at Barnes and Noble and most other retail book stores. I just like B&N. This post should only take you a few more minutes to read. Then you can go sell your soul.

(time for said link following, bookmarking, and redirecting, possibly more link following to explore the cookbook dets, and then another redirect)

Back? Okey dokes. So Lakota and I were at our favorite coffee shop down by the river the other day. Pie day, coincidentally. She had been raving about this Raspberry Cream Pie that Ree had on her blog, which L tried and well, it was apparently amazing because she still hasn't shut up about it (I say this in an endearing sort of way). During the course of our discussion, one of us suggested that other berries could be subbed into the recipe in place of the raspberry-ness. An avid strawberry goer myself, I was at the market getting the items I didn't already have before I knew what was happening.

The rest of this post is my adventure with my modified version of the Pioneer Woman's recipe, though I can hardly call it "my version" as I think most people who can differentiate a fork from a cooking pot can figure the adjustment out. Anywho, here we go:

Enter the guests of honor: sugar, strawberries, heavy whipping cream, butter, vanilla pudding, strawberry yogurt*, Oreos, AND of course, Ree’s website tuned to the Raspberry Cream Pie recipe.

*I happened to only have white chocolate strawberry yogurt in my fridge. I was concerned for all of five seconds before realizing, what’s wrong with more chocolate? So there you go.

The first part of the recipe called for precisely 25 oreos. As this was said to be very crucial, I followed the recipe exactly. Here’s the first one.

Now two.

...and three. Oh you get the point.

Here's the 25 count mark!

Ahem.

Here we go, everyone present and accounted for.

I smooshed them all in a ziploc bag. PW suggests a food processor, but mine bit the dust eons ago. I also don’t know where my rolling pin is, as PW suggested alternatively. A can o’ green beans sufficed. Smash smash smash. PW's Oreos were blended very nicely while mine came out chunkier due to my method. I feel the taste was the same, so no harm done.

To the already gloriuos mixture, I poured the melted butter. This created a substance so heavenly that I could have sat down right then with a spoon and a marathon of America’s Next Top Model and be content as a cucumber. Alas, I did not.

BAD camera focus! I even dragged out my SLR cause my point and shoot decided to hate me. This wasn’t one of my SLR’s best shots, but we’ll chalk that up to operator error and digress. This is the glorious concoction. Isn’t it glorious?

While the crust was baking, I was anxious to continue (plus I had someplace to be in approx 1.5 hours time so I was in a bit of a hurry to keep things moving along). So I began smashing my strawberries.

Ladies and gents, this isn’t as easy with strawberries as it is with raspberries, I discovered. Future reference: this is another time a food processor would be handy in this recipe. I suggest a super low setting, however, as you don’t want to puree your fruit. If you’re food processor-less like me, I suggest strawberries that are almost too ripe for consumption. Your wrist will thank me someday.

One hazard of going it my route is flyaway fruit. My three legged dog, however, didn’t mind this. Like most dogs, he’s a garbage pail. So fork away!

Next I mixed the white chocolate strawberry yogurt and the instant vanilla pudding together. Again, this flavor yogurt was a fluke. I’d suggest the logical route of going with just plain strawberry yogurt as a sub for the raspberry variety called for in Ree’s recipe.

The pie crust finished baking at some point around here. Ree is clear to wait until the crust has completely cooled before continuing with the rest of the recipe. Again, I was in a hurry, and I hate to wait anyways. So I popped this puppy in the freezer. Yes, I cheated. NOTE: I waited about 5 minutes first so the pan wasn’t just out of the oven hot AND I put a hotpad underneath to protect my freezer shelf. I am not responsible for any freezer damage caused by this pursuit in any of my readers (I say this as if tons of people are reading this. Oh when will I ever stop dreaming? Never!). I’m just saying what I did.

My cats disapproved of this shenanigan. Note the second cat’s tail towards the right. Goofballs.

Next I added in the heavy whipping cream and whipped the crap out of the mixture. I pride myself in being a thrifty college student so when I was at the grocery picking up the cream and the Oreos I didn’t have, I was inclined to purchase the $1.29 regular whipping cream instead of the $1.99 heavy whipping cream. I did however opt for the “fancy” version as I was intent on sticking to the PW recipe as much as possible. This of course was nixed when I discovered the yogurt situation once I returned home. Oh well. This part at least was right.

I added the sugar to the berries that I had forgotten to do pre-mushing, waited five minutes of the fifteen suggested to let the berries soak in the sugar, and plopped them into the cream mix. Plop... This. Smells. Amazing. By the way. And tastes good too. I had to get a new spatula for the next step as I licked the first one clean.

Now nicely cool, I retrieved my pie crust and dolloped the cream filling stuff on top. I don’t have a spiffy pie plate like Ree does, so I couldn’t make the crust climb the sides of the pie as nicely as hers. Oh well. I smoothed the mixture out evenly and made sure it was nice and flat.

I retrieved another oreo and sacrificed it to the green beans can. I would like to add a disclaimer that approximately 29 oreos were indeed harmed during the making of this treat (I confiscated more than the prescribed one, for quality control reasons you understand).

In plenty of time to go fight hunger, I topped off this delicious pie with that last Oreo’s crumbles. Magnifique!

Before dashing out the door, I left this note to my fellow house dwellers. There would most likely have been no pie left had I not written such a note. I should add that I wasn't fighting hunger at all. That would have been a good way to spend my evening. No, I had a Disney movie date with a friend, Belle I shall call her (that is intentional and a complete coincidence here).

The complete pie went to the freezer, where it literally chilled for a few hours. After returning to my sleeping household, I slipped it into the fridge where it hung out until the following evening when it was enjoyed by my very happy family. They appreciate my spontaneous pie making endeavors.

Thus I made my world (and my family's, for that matter) a little brighter with this rather easy to make cream pie. Props to Ree Drummond the Pioneer Woman for the inspiration and for just being awesome.

Signed,

RF the closet cook