More Important Things

This blog's header used to have a subtitle that read "food and thought". I still believe the thought part is as important as the food -- the words just got sacrificed in the improvement of my design.

But tonight a friend reminded me why I started this blog.

In my first blog post, just over a year ago, I stated my philosophy about food and still stand by it. Food is something worth taking a stance on when it plays as much of a role in life as it does in mine. Somehow it has crept in and filled my spare time, determined my budget, turned my conversations, and motivated my artistic endeavors. If something shapes that much of my life, I like to make sure I have the right perspective and priorities.

So excuse me while I forgo sharing a recipe with you tonight. Hopefully this will not just be some selfish public journalling but maybe will benefit you as well.

And I think that just hit upon something important. Doing things selfishly is what starts to prick my conscience and makes me want to simply remove myself from those things, leaving them behind. But that can't happen with food. We are required to eat it to live, and it is only a small percentage of humanity that has the luxury of getting sick of it. Many other bellies, those that are perpetually hungry, have no concept of this.

So, I don't want to react begrudgingly or ungratefully when my life gets a little out of balance, and it feels like food and this food blog and my food photography and the comments I'm expected to make about food are to blame. I have thought about ceasing this blog at those times, and while I'm not signing any contracts for the coming year (or five), I'm not saying all of this to get to the word goodbye.



I am taking life in small increments right now.

Tomorrow I get to sit around a big, long table eating soup and bread with friends, and that's an image I love.

Less than two weeks from now, I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with my mom, sister, brother, sister-in-law, and (the star of this year's holiday...) my two-month-old nephew. And as nice as roast turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie may be, it is not these things that get my heart racing for the plane ride that will take me home. It is the faces I'll get to see and the shoulders I'll get to rest my head on.

And now I'm really leaping ahead, but in July I'll be packing my bags and leaving Abilene, Texas with a university diploma under my arm. I don't know where I'll be yet or what sorts of foods I'll be eating or if this blog will even be possible in those circumstances, but I do not want to make the last two unknowns determining factors in my decision.

I always want life to be bigger than food. After all, I have soul cravings.

Just has I have a stomach that growls when it's meant to be fed, I have a heart that insists there's something more.