I've been thinking a lot about storytelling lately. Considering how much I write, it's kind of surprising that I don't think more about it, actually. But just recently, as I was telling Dixon some stories, I realized something strange: not that many of my family stories, the ones that get told over and over again, involve food.
Oh, there's the one about my grandmother dropping the chocolate mousse just before a dinner party. And the one about my other grandmother marinating venison in vinegar. Also, there's my grandfather letting my brother a) eat a raw oyster and b) stick his hand in a bushel of live crabs, both before he turned three. Also, if you want to count it, the vague memories of the really terrible lemon chicken my dad made when we were little (that got him out of any sort of kitchen duty for...well, forever).
But that's about it. They're really just horror stories, too. We've had a lot of good meals, but somehow, those don't translate into memorable stories.
I wonder why that is. Why do all of the good meals - at home, in the backyard, at the beach, in restaurants - blend together? Can't good food be a good story?
And if it can't, what does that mean for me as a food blogger? Maybe it explains why I rarely write about actual food...
UPDATE: My brother just emailed me to point out that my dad's chicken disaster was Hawaiian chicken, not lemon chicken. Either way, I'm pretty sure neither of us ate any of it (I'm also pretty sure it was before Erin was born, so she didn't eat any, either.)
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