Just for Fun

Blogging is a funny thing.  My motivation for it is like a wave, cresting and speeding toward land until it crashes into the shore in a spectacular foamy finale.  Then the wave retreats, silently, humbly.  These days I’m like the retreating wave after the splash.  I’ve been fighting a minor case of writer’s block, unsure of what I wanted to say here and which recipes I wanted to share.  I worry sometimes that I will run out of things to say.  Or I worry that I’m repeating myself without even knowing it.  For example, being in love is really, really great.  But how many times can you honk that horn before people grow tired of it?

It also occurs to me that sometimes it’s just fun to share something light-hearted.  Not every post needs to be serious and intense!  I saw this variation on the “seven things” meme in the archives at everybody likes sandwiches.  I like lists and I like the number seven, so here I go, just for fun, seven lists of seven things!

* Seven Things I’d Like to Do Before I Die

1)  Visit Europe.

2)  Publish a paper in Cell.

3)  Make a deep-dish skillet pizza.

4)  Own a house.

5)  Write a book.

6)  Teach molecular biology.

7)  Dip my toes in the Mediterranean Sea.

* Seven Things I Cannot Do

1)  Cook beef

2)  Make decent Chinese food at home

3)  Enjoy portobello mushrooms

4)  Go to a bookstore without looking in the cookbook section

5)  Decide if I want a subscription to Bon Appetit magazine

6)  Pretend to be happy when I’m not

7)  Leave dirty clothes on the floor.    

* Seven Things That Attract Me to Blogging

1)  The thrill of self-publishing

2)  The attention to detail that writing nurtures in me

3)  Developing my own cooking style

4)  My love of words

5)  Fabulous recipes and people all over the world, brought right into my home through my computer

6)  The recipes that my readers share with me in the comments section

7)  A writing practice that has made me a bolder, more adventurous writer

* Seven Things I Say Most Often

1)  Sh*t!

2)  Beautiful

3)  [typed]  “Dear Matt…”

4)  Good morning!

5)  Hmm…

6)  Ha!

7)  Oh my goodness!

*Seven Books I Have Loved

1)  The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 

2)  Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon

3)  The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

4)  The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

5)  The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness by Antonio Damasio

6)  Deep Economy by Bill McKibben

7)  How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food by Nigella Lawson

* Seven Movies I Watch Over and Over Again

Truth be told, I don’t usually watch movies more than once.  I’m going to have to pass on this one!  Otherwise, I’ll just tell you about my work-out DVDs and videos, which I do watch over and over again…because I’m exercising!

* Seven Bands/Singers That I Love

1)  Armin van Buuren (technically, he’s a DJ, but he’s awesome!)

2)  Jace Everett

3)  Dan Cohen (his new CD, Shhhh, is just lovely)

4)  George Strait (How ‘bout them cowgirls?)

5)  Our Lady Peace (I loved them when I was sixteen and I love them now as a twenty-eight-year-old)

6)  Coldplay

7)  Matt Nathanson

Now I feel like I ought to start working on that “Seven Things I’d Like To Do Before I Die” list up there at the top!  Maybe I’ll start with the deep-dish skillet pizza and consider it a warm-up for my future trip to Italy.  Molto bene!