For the number of places this Asian Couple has been to eat, not many of them have been blogged about. This in part is due to what I have been calling "A Mediocre Writer's Block". And I've been suffering.
This is not to say that there isn't
a lot to write about Asian Coupling and the Asian Couple's encounters with food. This Asian Couple does plenty of things, particularly dining out and spending more money than we ought to (which, upon reflection, is a very non-Asian couple-y thing to do. We need to
save, god damnit!).
Part of the problem I think, is a lack of motivation and plain old fatigue. After leaving school and moving to Southern California, I've gotten used to writing only corporate memos and passive (aggressively) threatening emails. And at the end of the day, who has the energy to think about this?
We have been talking about this recently and have determined that there are mainly 2 ways that others go about writing about the next great (or not-so-great) dining experience. The first is to embrace and understand the food, the preparation of the food, the history behind the food, and all the various parts that form the food. In short, go the technical route.
The second way is to convey the visceral experience of eating: food as feeling, food as compared to, say, modern art or literature. The idea is to juxtapose something provocative (steamy noodle soup) next to something else that's provocative (Kline, although he'd prefer Pollock) and to conjure an altogether different, more complex sensation of eating for the reader. It's easy enough to say something is tasty. But why should someone, upon reading about it, want to eat it? This method might be called, um, the "creative" route, for lack of a better term.
Famous critic Gael Greene opts for this second route, although after almost 40 years of reviewing for New York Magazine, she knows the technical stuff, too. Most writers seem to have a "thing" and her thing is to basically eat like she's fucking. Here's the formula:
Provocative thing 1: sex + Provocative thing 2: food = I want to eat that.
Her writing is extremely tactile. She says things like, "I want a proud, compelling burger - caramelized, rare and juicy..." This has been extremely effective for her.
The ideal lay food blogger would incorporate both methods and complement that with their unique signature. Since I have no intention of delving into the technical side of food, I am more likely to lean towards endeavoring to describe why the food I eat is indeed provocative and sensational, which of course, does not make me any sort of "ideal food blogger". But now the intention is clear: to evoke jealousy.
That being said, the next post is the latest installment to the NSP- a review of the Ramen Piece de Resistance, Santouka Ramen. I will try not to write the entire thing in French, which I am tempted to do.
To observe great food writing for yourself, please see Gael Greene's blog
http://www.insatiable-critic.com/. Eating really is as good as sex and it doesn't require any talking.
P.S. She also wears big hats!
