Sunday, January 1, 2012

Aunt Sally Is Back And Goes Downtown


There’s an old Southern tale that says what you do on New Year’s Day, you do all year long. Here’s hoping 2012 will find me in a more settled state in order to focus on this blog.

You see, when I started this blog, I had images of a quaint, mid-century house with a large vintage kitchen. Unfortunately (or providentially), I recently sold my cute mid-century house. Divorce takes its toll on one’s address.

For the past several months, I’ve been terribly overwhelmed with sorting, packing and moving. Overwhelming as well was the great sadness of leaving what I had thought would have been the little dream cottage where a family would be created and nurtured. I put a lot of work into that house, painting and decorating, all in the hopes of creating memories for the family that never came to be.

So, now, I find myself in a cosmopolitan condo. Highway sounds, not birds and frogs, lullaby me to sleep.

What about the new kitchen? To call it postage stamp size would be an insult to postage stamps.  I had been frustrated with my former kitchen, finding it too small for someone who enjoys cooking as much as I do. I had hoped to find a new home with an even larger kitchen. An old farmhouse with pantry enough to put up quart upon quart of peaches to last the entire year suited my fantasies.

Who am I fooling? I’m not an Amish farmer’s wife with fifteen children and a pressing need to put up enough food to see the family through a freezing winter. 

For that matter, who are any of us fooling? We build kitchens that look more formal than a palace, spend tens of thousands of dollars on them, only to eat out. In cleaning out the kitchen of a deceased relative, the pantry was full of canned goods, never used. There were layers of expired dates, much like an archeological site. Plush designer kitchens are filled with unused equipment and rotting food.

While I had hoped and planned to present Aunt Sally Good Food in a quaint, vintage kitchen, nasty ol’ reality has left me with precious little room. Discouraged, I almost abandoned this blog. Then, I realized, this is a golden opportunity! Who has giant, $100,000 kitchens anyway? Only networks and people who never use them.  Most people have to make do with teeny, tiny kitchens. This is my opportunity to discover new ways to do very much with very little. So, dear friends, follow me as I try to figure out where everything will go and how to cook while painting and unpacking.  Tag along and together we’ll discover downtown Dallas gourmet joints. Would your oh-so-cool auntie do anything less? After all, Aunt Sally Good Food is less about the food and more about the story the food tells. 

Thus begins a very urban chapter.