November 30, 2020
Smitten
I loved EVERYTHING about this profile of Deb Perelman in The New Yorker. I had no idea that she was an old school blogger before she was a food blogger proper, but I should have guessed—and it’s possible that this is why I love her blog as much as I do.
Incidentally, my blog (if not this blog, but rather my blog in general) turned twenty years old last month. To mark this occasion, I just went back and found my OG blog in the Way Back Machine Internet Archive—the first archived post is VERY EMBARRASSING and possibly not anything to celebrate or commemorate. To be so obviously needy. It’s a miracle I had any friends—and not surprising that I didn’t have a boyfriend.
But—it’s hard to altogether rue the person who got me here, which is not a bad place to be. She was trying (really, really, REALLY hard).
Some sensibilities of old school blogging are totally baked in though, integral to my process. I recognized this from Deb Perelman: “I try to have a schedule, but I’m extremely bad at keeping schedules. I have watched corporate blog after corporate blog go to crap, because there was a posting schedule where you had to write five posts a day. I think that everybody would rather just write when you have something good to say.”
Or even when you have nothing good to say, but feel like checking in anyway.
Deb Perelman is a delight. I love her. I love her recipes. I adore her tiny kitchen, her attitude to life, her non-domestic goddess vibe. But what I loved the most about this whole piece was this paragraph:”I grew up in Central New Jersey, eating Frenchish Jewish suburban food. Based on my background, where did I learn about coconut curry with curry leaves? It would be crazy if I acted like I invented that dish!” Alison Roman et. al would benefit from taking a masterclass in grace and professionalism from Deb. Smitten Kitchen is far too good for those bigots at Bon Appetit. I’m glad they never hired her.