The Serial-Blogger Who Never Blogs

Fine. I'll admit it: I am probably the laziest blogger in the entire world...who doesn't give up on blogging. I assume most people who blog, blog frequently and those who only blog once in several many full moons (ahem, like myself) would just give up on blogging all together, admit defeat and realise that it was a lost cause. Nope, not me. I pop by every so often to reassure myself that I am not a give-upper and that I do care about all my blog-babies. (Thank goodness, these blogs aren't real children.)

Just had my 20-something-th birthday this weekend and it is time to turn over yet another new leaf. I am aware that I begin to run out of leaves to turn but this year is a year of optimism. I feel it. It is in the air. I am setting realistic, achievable goals for myself from now on. It is time to be a real adult and accomplish what I set out to do. The goal is ...drumroll please... to blog at least once a week. I will be working 40 to 50-hour weeks in a restaurant, taking on random clusters of 10 to 14-hour shifts. I am most certain that I will have something to discover and share about the food and beverage industry on a weekly basis. :)

Recently I discovered Michael Ruhlman's ratio chart of doughs and batters. Chow.com did a Q&A with Mr. Ruhlman back in 2009 (which was when the book was published) and he oh-so-graciously allowed them to publish the chart online. I can only assume that it's a snippet of what is in his full-sized work Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. It is interesting to think of cooking and baking in such a rational way. As he also mentioned in the interview, I see how it can be helpful to beginners out there, mostly in reducing the stress of getting things 'just right' in the kitchen. In essentials, I agree. If the dough doesn't work out, instead of worrying about the more technical aspects like room temperature or the way you might be kneading the dough for example, it is much easier for newcomers to fiddle with their flour-to-water ratio. Even a skilled baker will concur that ratio is not something you can mess up, though chefs might have different things to say about it, especially ones who like that creative flair in the kitchen.

Just for good measure though, I will print it out and tack in on a wall in my kitchen as a reassurance that if anything fails, it is not me but how I am reading my cooking scale. The next time I'm in a book store, I will see what other formulae Mr. Ruhlman put in the rest of his book.