I'm so excited, I just can't hide it, I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Sweet sweet summer
Topic: Cooking
I procured both fresh lard and tart cherries this weekend and I'm going to make a cherry pie. Is there anything better in the world? Well, yeah, my family and all.

I can almost taste that pie...it's too hot today to bake but maybe tomorrow....Yummylicious. If you think I'm disproportionately excited it's only because you have never tasted my cherry pie. You poor dear.

Prof dev
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Whereupon Ms. Brizzi confesses her deep-seated urges to be famous, or at least to make a living
Topic: food writing biz
Last week I e-mailed off three proposals for panels for next spring's convention of the International Association of Culinary Professionals in Seattle. For each one I would be the moderator with two panelists, because to be sole lecturer, you have to be a real, well-known food person, not the wanna-be I feel that I am some of the time.

One is about seafood of the Pacific Northwest, one about wild mushrooms ditto, and one called Write Like Bach, whereupon I would convince two of the country's most eloquent food writers to sit on a panel with me and teach fledging food writers how to become great writers.

Most likely the IACP will not accept any of these proposals, and life will go on. Possible but much less likely is that they would say yes to all three and I'll be busy at the conference, or best yet that they will say yes to one and I'll make $500, get a free day of conference, get to see my old friend from second grade who lives in Seattle, my second cousin who is book editor of the Seattle Times and the Kaplans who were in Vietnam with us and have two boys adopted from there, one of whom is Sofia's age. And I will increase my recognition and be on my way to...something....being a real food writer, recognized in my field, etc.

If it happens, I will have to speak in front of lots of people, something I have always been lousy at. It would be wonderful , though, and now it's time to set the thought aside and go on to other things and in the beginning of August I will find out.

Huh?
It has been hard to log onto Angelfire lately. I have been trying all night with no luck. Finally it's working.

www.jenniferbrizzi.com is taking me far too long to perfect. Hours of work have resulted in a half-done site with lots of problems, the current stumper being image-loading.

"By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed."--William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), The Heart of the West, 1907)

"An onion can make people cry but there's never been a vegetable that can make people laugh." --Will Rogers

Time Mgmt.
Mood:  d'oh
If I could eliminate cooking and eating from my daily life, I would have unbelievable amounts of free time.

Just this morning, part of my all-too-brief kid-free work hours, I spent an inordinate amount of time preparing a shad for slow baking: rinsing, tail trimming, thin-slicing onions and clipping herbs to stuff inside it, wrapping it carefully in three pieces of foil, then having to do it over because I forgot the four strips of bacon that was supposed to be laid on top.

Preparing, eating and cleaning up after dinner each night takes me about three hours. That's three hours that could be spent balancing my checkbook, scrubbing the shower , improving my mind by reading a classic book, or cleaning my room.

I try to blame my husband for expecting fresh meals from scratch every night, for not providing me with a dishwasher or helping with the dishes, but it's really not his fault. It's wholly mine. I love to cook. And even more than I love to cook, I love to eat (how can anyone like cooking but not eating?--I'll have to ask the next skinny chef I meet--that's a topic for another day).

Breakfast and lunch and a myriad of snacks, too, take time to prepare, consume and clean up after. It's a good thing that I'm making cooking and eating my life's work--it's the only way to justify all the time I spend on it--otherwise it would be called gluttony or the squandering of time better spent doing more constructive things!

Risky? Risque?
Mood:  flirty
Now Playing: Naughty food
At the risk of this blog being found and overrun by aficionados of Internet porn, here is a list of words from my new Magnetic Poetry set, themed "Cooking," that would not be out of place in a Magnetic Poetry set themed "Sex." I think its creators were being a little naughty when they included a word like "wiener" with candy, toast and oyster.

Here, in no particular order, are the words that jumped out at me from the side of the refrigerator when I noticed a few tinglingly sexy ones:

love
crave
roast
plump
moist
linger
steam
tender
devour
nibble
smoke
raw
succulent
satisfy
hunger
tongue
wiener
come
cream
sweet
ripe
mouth
bone
bun
spice
swallow

Now many might say that I have my mind in the gutter to consider some of those sexy, when they are so clearly merely food words. Well then I say to them, consider these, too, which while they may not shout out "SEX!", would not be out of place in an erotic tale:

toast
full
dough
boil
clam
oyster
sauce
honey
fruit
raw
delicious
eat
pinch
meat

I never knew that the exterior of my refrigerator could be as much fun as the inside. What hours of fun I'll have late at night with those little magnets!

Funny Ha Ha
Mood:  silly
The conference was awesome. I had such a good time being around 699 other writers. It made me feel like not such a weirdo. Laughed my ass off and learned a lot of useful stuff. All the panelists said you have to have a website, and no, I didn't finish mine in time but since I only handed my business card out to one other writer, I guess it's okay.

In one panel, business writer Gwen Moran said of food writing that it's not all chocolate and red wine, but actually "brains, bone marrow sauce and squid ink."

I love it!

Ay yi yi

Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat...
--Maurice Sendak, "Where the Wild Things Are" (HarperCollins, 1963)

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "What's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"'What's for breakfast?' said Pooh. 'What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.

--A.A. Milne,"Christopher Robin Gives Pooh a Party (E.P. Dutton, 1926)

It's all about the children, and lately it really has been. Too crazy 'round here to do anything but cook and mostly clean--apologies to my legions of fans who have surely bookmarked this page and turn eagerly to it each day before breakfast to see what clever bits of tripe I will bestow upon them. Sorry, fans.

Although I am crazed with getting my stinkin' website ready for the ASJA conference Saturday, at least the party is over, so I can breathe a bit. Forty-seven people have actually left my house clean, thanks to a gloriously sunny, warm early April day and my extreme cleanings prior to it. I will never clean like that again.

Tonight I cooked a Spain-inspired fish stew, with a goodly-sized piece of the freshest cod, a chunkily diced Russet, gobs of saffron, Pinot Grigio and garlic, and splashes of onion, tomato, parsley and clam broth, all simmered to loveliness and thrown over oiled croutons made from the simplest rolls that had been sliced and toasted. Aaah.

The website www.jenniferbrizzi.com is proving quite difficult and time consuming. If there are any food-impassioned web gurus out there willing to help a website-starting virgin make her name known on the Internet, email me at jerosoma@yahoo.com. Tanks.

Enuf fer dis day...

Getting there
Mood:  cheeky
The web site is up and on its way, still needs a lot of work, but is encouragingly happening. Don't look at it until it's done, well, alright, peek if you must, but it has a ways to go. It's very exciting, though, but too time consuming for a busy mom with weekly columns due and a major birthday party for one kid in a week and change and an extremely messy, filthy, cluttered house. Our house is tiny, and I mean teeny, and a zillion people are coming...Aaaagh.

Well, foodwise, I'm serving either dabo kolo or sambusas, two Ethiopian fried appetizers--one with a filling, fried chicken wings, pigs in blankets (can't resist, and people do eat them), chips, dips, etc. asparagus frittata or egg squares, baked ziti, cold cuts with the fixin's or a giant sub, green salad, bean salad, with the requisite beverages for the wine-swilling crowd that's coming.

Beautiful day today, spring is finally here and purple crocuses are blooming all over my garden beds. I'm making that Brizzi household standard pasta tonight, with a sauce embellished with anchovy and flakes, a sauce I could make in my sleep, that my husband wants to have every night. But it's simple and good.

I'm online this week
Mood:  happy
This week's column on a non-baker's experiences with bread is online and in this week's Woodstock Times. Although the Kingston Times and some of Ulster Pub's other papers run it every week, it's averaging about every two weeks for Woodstock, who already had a few food columnists before I came along. The WT is currently the only one of the five papers that puts it on the Web--I'll have to see what I can do about that.

Living Large
Mood:  mischievious
I haven't quoted anyone in a while, so here are a couple gems I just came across, from Oscar Wilde:

"Moderation is a fatal thing--nothing succeeds like excess."

and

"We are all of us in the gutter.
But some of us are looking at the stars."

Why Tripe Soup?
Mood:  celebratory
The sweetbreads were crispy and tasty--I did them simply, a 15 minute poaching in water acidulated with lemon, then a dip in seasoned flour, then a searing and sauteing in buttter and olive oil, a squeeze of more lemon. I had never cooked them before and had only eaten them twice or thrice. They were great.

I promised a few entries ago to tell you why this blog is called "Tripe Soup." Well, it began last year as an idea for a local newsletter about eating in the part of the Hudson Valley where I live. It was to have a logo similar to this one, that I drew late one night after a little wine and a lot of practice. Then I made it into this logo with the help of logobee.com.

I was going to distribute my newsletter, the first issue free, in local bookstores and food stores with a tiny black lace bagful of hot pink M & Ms. It was going to be mostly about local food. But after I put a lot of thought and work and planning and pretty much laid out the first issue, I realized that I can't take my two tots to fancy restaurants or even into food stores where a dirty little paw squeezing the Stilton would be unwelcome.

So I decided to make it a website, with my irreverent, sometimes funny, always passionate comments on food and eating, designed not to teach cooking but to entertain those interested in eating whether they cook or not. Before it becomes a website, it's having an incarnation as a blog about succulence, savoriness and enjoying life while eating, but in essence bits of worthless, sometimes offensive rubbish...

"Tripe" is defined as:
1. the entrails, generally; hence, the belly, generally used in the plural (obs)
2. part of the stomach of ruminating animals when dressed and prepared for food
3. anything worthless, offensive, etc.; rubbish; trash [Slang}

I call it Tripe Soup because it?s about eating what makes you feel good, what makes your eyes, ears, nose, tongue (taste and texture) happy, not what?s trendy, chic, or LITE. Like tripe, it may shock or disgust you. It isn?t sweet and bland but chewy and full of tang. My goal is to induce drooling, to make you hungry.

The subtitle of the original newsletter was "Not your Grandmother?s Newsletter," although my focus is on the kind of food she cooked.

Let me know what you think of the logo. I'm always happy to get feedback. Here are some links to some of my "Ravenous" columns:
Hooked on Cookbooks
Lowcountry Highs
To All a Good Soup

Need Tea
Mood:  lazy
I'm sleepy, procrastinating work, doing everything I can not to spend the last few kid-free minutes I have this week (usually four and a half hours/week, if I'm lucky and the day care person doesn't call in sick) actually writing the first draft of next week's "Ravenous."

It's an exciting week, workwise. Got an iBook laptop Monday (thanks, sweetie), so I can work anywhere and anywhen, downstairs after the kids go to bed--if I have any energy left, that is--away from home, on vacation, in New York City. If I master its advanced operating system, how to get online and install Word, I'll be good to go.

My website, www.jenniferbrizzi.com, is coming along--wait, don't check it yet, it's not ready. I've been plugging away at the content and layout, and eight versions of a potential logo arrived Monday. They look gorgeous; I picked one and sent back some comments, and the final version should be ready for the world soon. I'm very excited that I will finally have a way for editors to see my stuff easily, as well as anyone else who'd like to read it, too. There will be a link to Tripe Soup on it, as well as links to many of my columns, present and past. Lots of fun!

On the cooking front, I'm doing some sweetbreads this evening for the first time, as soon as I figure out how to make them crispy and tasty. Tomorrow is corned beef and cabbage day of course, with one of my biggest fans and best friends here to share it: Melissa. I haven't seen her for months and she's as nutty about food as I am. I'm making that buttery soda bread with caraway seeds, golden raisins and currants, too. Mmmmmm.

Back to work ...

On Blogging & Blogging On
Mood:  loud
I have looked briefly at a couple of other food-related blogs (for some reason most blog sites make my computer crash), and they seem to be mostly diaries of what was eaten, kind of like the food diary I used to keep when traveling. But instead of pasta con le sarde, it will be something like "Grabbed a bagel with butter and some coffee off the cart on 47th St. on my way to work. The bagel was soft, there was too much butter on it, and the coffee was bitter and old. Guess I should try to get to work earlier."

But if that's what food bloggers do (no offense meant to any food bloggers--I know they're not all like that, by a long shot), maybe I should write about what I ate today, instead of giving you quotes from other writers like I usually do. I won't mention breakfast--it wasn't that exciting, nor was lunch's beef vegetable soup from the freezer that I jazzed up with freshy sauteed garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. But the egg salad was exceptional, with a minced Sicilian anchovy and a cornichon, chopped Spanish olives and capers and scallion, dash of Cholula (Mexican hot sauce), dollops of Hellman's and Bornier mustard, salt and pepper of course. Mmmm dreamy. And I don't even like egg salad.

For dinner I'm slow braising lamb shanks and baby lima beans. Both were frozen before cooking so we'll see how three and a half hours at 300? F does. Probably the limas will turn to mush, but a tasty mush it should be, with it's red wine, marjoram, thyme, bay, smidgen of tomato paste, lots of garlic and a fine soffritto. I'll let you know.

Monday morning musings
Mood:  caffeinated
Thanks to ghostrider from eGullet for stopping by. Having someone read an entry and comment on it is a real treat, especially a kindred spirit as concerns high living.

Marcella Hazan, who is well into her seventies, was feted in Italy last year for her lifetime achievements. According to Saveur mag, she was seen drinking some kind of noxious hard liquor and smoking. I really think worrying is worse for you than all that bad stuff you consume, although I worry *and* consume bad stuff, so I get the double whammy. Usually what I worry about is what people are going to think of me while I'm eating that whole plate of fries or puffing on that butt.

I'm now procrastinating the column that's due this morning, and for which I have only notes so far, no first draft yet, and two very demanding small children running about. This week "Ravenous" is about my collection of 383 cookbooks, and should be fun to write. It's an eclectic assortment; my favorites are ones like "Road Kill Cooking," "Moose Mousse," and "Fried Coffee and Jellied Bourbon." For real.

Anyway, it should be online on Woodstock Times' website by Thursday or Friday (www.ulsterpublishing.com), if any of my legions of fans wish to peruse it. Listen to me, one comment from a reader, and I'm acting like I hit the bigtime. Hubby's says he'll get me a laptop for my b-day tomorrow, so I'll be able to write at night when the kiddies are asnooze, and get more done.

The sexy Jennifer Brizzi logo arrives next Monday, too. Can't wait to see it.

Why am I here?
Now that I'm working on my third entry, it's past time to consider the purpose of this blog. I'm not really into reading other people's blogs so I don't know what function they are supposed to serve. Is it a diary, a journal? No, too public. I guess it will be a combination of quotes I like (easy, I have tons of them, and can type them out quickly), plus very short musings on a variety of topics that will mostly be food-related.

In truth, it is a way to procrastinate dealing with the toppling mountains of clutter that surround me, the Queen of Clutter that is my mind, the sludge and dust and filth of my house and my body (I do shower daily, but neglect the upkeep and maintenance my forty-something body needs, like regular exercise, clean living, and nutritious low-fat eating).

Overwhelmed with too much housework and child care, and too many writing projects going on at once--weekly column, a variety of articles in a variety of stages of completion, and two novels--this blog is my little refuge where I will post tiny snippets of some sort of wisdom. I will probably not write every day, but will try to do it a few times a week. Soon I will tell you why this blog is called Tripe Soup, although you may well have already figured it out.

Sometimes I will be too lazy to think for myself, and will just give you a quote, like this one:

"Lettuce is like conversation: it must be fresh and crisp, and so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it."

--Charles Dudley Warner

Arrivederci...