a case of food ennui

Salad, nachos, and beer for lunch? Yes, please. I love the LA Farmer's Market. And, yes, I realize that I've alreaady posted this photo, but I don't have a photo for boredom.

Last month, when I was in Los Angeles, I walked over 50 blocks roundtrip for an ice cream sandwich. I’m sure you are thinking that is completely ridiculous. But you probably also have a million questions about my ice cream sandwich. What flavor was it? Were the cookies homemade? Was it the best ice cream sandwich ever and you just had to have one? Why didn’t you take the car? Or a bike? I mean, you were in Los Angeles. Nobody walks there.

Great questions. But really, it was simple. I was sitting on the deck of someone else’s guest house, in the quiet, alone (read: with my kids two states away), reading a magazine and drinking a glass of wine. Does that sound totally self-indulgent or what? The truth was that my mind was wandering from the reading and I wasn’t really enjoying the wine. I decided to go for a walk. I intended to walk only the few blocks down to the beach, but somewhere along the way, I was hit with the urge for an ice cream sandwich and, fortunately, I knew exactly where to get one only 25 blocks away.

As I was walking back with my sandwich (bakery fresh chocolate chip cookies with mint chip ice cream between them, if you must know), I started thinking about my developing case of food ennui. That sounds so pompous and dramatic, I’m sorry. But honestly, I don’t really know what else to call it. If you’ve met me (or read me) you will know that I really do love food. Lately, though, I’ve noticed that nothing actually sounds good. I’ve been skipping lunch because I can’t decide what to have. It’s not that I am not hungry. I am hungry all the time. It really is that nothing sounds quite right. On my first full night in Los Angeles, alone, where I could have eaten anything in the food universe, I ate pre-prepared salmon and cauliflower from Whole Foods. People. This is the yuppie equivalent of going to Red Robin or The Cheesecake Factory. It is completely unoriginal, uninspired, and safe. What is going on here?

This is a strange phenomenon for me. I always know what I want to eat. I’m a craver by nature. There’s a Cajun word - envie - that my grandmother always used when she had a craving. It’s that feeling of knowing so strongly what you want to eat that you can taste it. My desire for specific foods seems to be going away. I’m still a firm believer in not wasting calories on something that you don’t like (cheesecake, in my case), but I’ve noticed myself softening a bit on this rule.

I wonder if part of this phenomenon has been created by the fact that for the last 11 months, I have been blogging about food. We’ve tried an amazing variety of dishes over the last year. I think about food all the time. Half of my Instagram feed is pictures of food. I talk about pictures of food. I take pictures of food. I’m constantly on Pinterest looking at food. I think it might be time for a food vacation. A little separation to allow food and I to fall back in love.

I fully realize that this is first and foremost a food blog. But for now, I hope you will be ok if we explore some other areas. How do you feel about making non-food things? Or books? Or decorating? Or maybe we can even discuss being human. Let’s give it a try for a bit. I’m open to comments. Please, comment. Let me know what you are thinking. Let’s start a discussion that isn’t about food and see where that takes us, ok?