One week ago fresh cracked pepper turned one. I meant to make a cake, but it didn’t happen. A blog doesn’t complain about the lack of cake like a person does. I guess I could’ve made myself a cake, being the brains behind said birthday blog. Instead, I went to a Superbowl party and took advantage of other people’s industriousness.
I stumbled upon a quote sometime ago that I’ve been saving up for an occasion such as this. It comes from our modern-day Brillant-Savarin, the venerable Michael Pollan. It distills what I try to do here in one sentence: “It can be incredibly rewarding to move food closer to the center of your life.”
OK, so it’s not the most profound idea. Some of you might even find it humorous. But in its simplicity it got me thinking about a simpler time when our life cycles moved in closer concert with the soil’s, the sun’s, the rain’s. It got me thinking about worms and carrots and bulbous onions, and about the spring that’s fogging up my windows today, taunting with her almost-warm breath.
Since the day I started it, fresh cracked pepper has done just that. It’s helped me see how food can mark the passage of time, define cultures, moments, people. It’s got me thinking about the various ways we experience the simple act of nourishing our bodies and our lives.
82 posts, 30 022 views, one link from a foodie celeb, one Wikipedia link, and 274 comments later, I can’t wait for year two.
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