When to censor a blog

Nearly a year ago I wrote a carefully worded open letter to The Pioneer Woman after outgrowing her blog & finding others that were more interesting and/or relevant to our lifestyle.  A blog that is single-mindedly devoted to disliking her picked it up & linked to it.  To be honest, I don't even read that blog because I found that it could be really mean-spirited at times.

As a result of being linked from that other blog, my one post about the Pioneer Woman gets more hits & comments than all my others combined.  Some comments are supportive of my post, whose point was that I no longer found her relevant to my life and was moving on to blogs written by people I could identify with, while some comments are downright nasty.

The irony is that people have to go looking for the post to find it.  My blog isn't exactly set up with SEO terms, nor is it in the top 100 search results.

Lately some of the negative comments have gotten ugly and personal.  Commenters, many of them anonymous, have called me catty, jealous, insecure, a bully, a "hater", and more.  Most of the time I just roll my eyes and wonder if they actually even read the damn post.

Today I went back and read it. I hadn't revisited it for quite a while. A year later, I still agree with what I wrote. I also believe that my opinion was carefully written without making any low blows at a fellow blogger.

Just this past weekend someone called me mean & accused my children of being bullies... how ironic given that the opening paragraph clearly stated I was childless.  That commenter had on her personal profile that she works in education.  I'm guessing that she didn't read my post, her reading comprehension must not be very high, or that she was so angry by the time she started reading that she could do little more than skim it.

Truth be told, the snarky, bitchy comments get to me sometimes.  All comments are sent to my in-box, which helps me monitor them, and this morning I got a handful of Monday morning notifications about what a meanie head I am.  It was (sarcasm) an awesome way to start my work week.

I'm debating taking the post down.  I try hard to never "feed the trolls".  I've allowed all the negative comments to remain on the thread and have never responded.  Blogs are free speech both for me as the blogger, and for you as the reader, n'est-ce pas? 

Maybe I should ask that other blog to remove the link from their site. 

Maybe I should expound upon the caveat at the opening of the post (which starts "fans of the Pioneer Woman should stop reading now").

What advice do you have?

Meditations on love

I stumbled upon a tragic story quite by accident this past week: food blogger Jennie lost her husband suddenly and unexpectedly.  In her 30s, she now finds herself a young widow and single mother of two girls.  Jennie recently posted about how she and her husband had made time for a date after he'd finished a busy work project.  She talked about the peanut butter pie - his favorite - she'd been meaning to make for him.  She talked about how important it is to tell our loved ones how special they are to us because you never know when tomorrow won't come.

Several years ago a friend loaned me the book The 5 Love Languages.  In reading it I realized that my love language is "acts of service".  In fact, my favorite act of service is cooking.  Spending the day in my kitchen to concoct a variety of delicious things is both my idea of entertainment and a way to show others that I care enough to do something special just for them.  Besides, cooking is a gift that we can all enjoy.

The challenge comes when people speak different love languages.  If one person values physical touch over acts of service, the time I devote to a locally sourced, homemade, multi-course meal will matter less than the accompanying hugs and kisses.  The opposite is true: an embrace is more enjoyable if preceded by some choreplay.

When I cook for someone, I spend the time thinking about them, reflecting upon what they mean to me and making sure that what I'm making will be a treat that takes into consideration their favorites.  For me, cooking is more than assembling food: it's about translating the love I feel for someone into a tangible, if fleeting, gift.

As I assembled the ingredients for this pie it dawned on me how many of the items in our home came into our possession due to love.  Just on my kitchen countertop you see a small colander of new potatoes from my garden, squash from a friend, the battery charger for the camera I gave Gene when we were dating, my grandmother's cookie jar, an orchid a friend gave me for my birthday, and the food processor my mom gave me.  Each of these items represents a gift of love.

I suspect that many cooks are acts-of-service people. 

Jennie requested that readers make a peanut butter pie to share with their loved ones:

For those asking what they can do to help my healing process, make a peanut butter pie and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there's no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on.

I used her recipe, changing it slightly to swap lower fat ingredients where possible (reduced fat peanut butter, no peanuts, graham crackers, neufchatel cheese).  You can find the recipe on Jennie's blog linked above, as well as more recipes and tribute blog posts on the Food Network blog.

To the people in my life for whom I cook: every bite is my way of telling you that I love you. 

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p.s. When I took the springform sides off the pie it slowly oozed onto the countertop.  What a mess.  I slid the whole thing into a deep dish pie plate and froze it.  This made for a very tasty frozen pie. 

Despite the lower fat ingredients, it's really quite rich.  Don't be gluttonous with your first piece as I was: I couldn't even finish it.  Me... the pregnant chick... couldn't eat a whole piece of pie.  I'm a shame to my kind.

Spinach-feta pie with a potato crust

I saw a recipe the other day for a cauliflower pie thing with melted cheese.  It had a crust made of grated potatoes & onions instead of flour and butter.  Then I forgot where I'd seen it (just remembered it was on CrumblyCookie.net). 

Turns out that the recipe has been around for years.  All that's old is really new again, eh? [shrug]

The problem was that I didn't have cauliflower.  I did, however, have a few eggs, some spinach, half an onion, feta cheese, creme fraiche, and some spring onions that needed to get used.

This potato had a bad toupee, which necessitated surgical removal.

Thus was born "Spinach-feta pie with a potato crust".  It was pretty darn tasty, too.

Crust:

• 2 cups grated raw potatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup grated onion
• cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Salt the potatoes & onions, then put them in a colander or strainer for about 10 minutes to drain.  After 10 minutes, squeeze them to work out some stress.

Combine the grated stuff with the beaten egg.

Spray a 9-10" pie pan liberally (there's a political joke in there somewhere).  Plop the mix into the pan and smoosh it out and up the sides so that it looks like, well, a crust.  Not much to this part.

Bake for about 40-45 minutes or until it's brown and crispy-looking.

Filling:

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup dairy of your choice: milk, yogurt, cream, creme fraiche (I had some because I'd tried making my own... more on that in a future post)
• Dash of nutmeg
• Red pepper flakes
• Salt & pepper
• 1/2 to 3/4 of a bag of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 4-5 green onions, finely chopped
• 1 package of feta cheese crumbles

Whisk together the eggs, dairy, and seasonings.  My red pepper flakes have lost their zip, so I added quite a lot (1/2 teaspoon).  Be conservative with the nutmeg - it's just enough to add a certain je ne sais quois.

Add in the spinach, green onions, and feta.

Yum.

Turn down the oven to 375.  Pour the filling into the potato crust and bake for another 35-45 minutes or until the filling is puffy and golden on top.

I liked this but my primary complaint is that we didn't eat dinner until almost 7:30.  This is not a fast meal.

But it is a yummy one!