Now that I have this exciting referral URL, there's no good reason not to post.

Except that I haven't really been cooking. I lost that flipping feeling--or maybe misplaced it--around the time that the Sunday Dinner Series stopped meeting (we'd gone to Europe, and when we got back the diners had scattered, taken shelter for the winter, had found things to eat, etc.), and, like with any other project you set aside for a while, it became increasingly difficult to return. But typing here, which is something I haven't done for a while, feels familiar, easy, comfortable even, almost to the point of making me wonder why I'd made it out to myself to seem like such an impossible undertaking. (Aside: I've never been comfortable typing in the Blogger interface directly; the typeface and the distracting of the "save now" button at paranoid intervals isn't terribly conducive for my kind of sentence turning.) So, yeah, maybe I can begin again.

Another thing that got in the way: On February 14, 2010, I was, in the interest of being a considerate, affectionate Valentine, decided it would be a good idea if I freed the sink of the dishware and utensils left from the previous evening's eating. I took the knife with which I'd sliced and diced a number of things fearlessly in my homecookingschool classes, and set about divesting it of its grime. Well, that proved a task either too involved for someone like me, or a task too delicate for early morning dullness. The slice into the right side of my left index finger, like a similar one proudly performed on boot leather or a bright tomato before a live and catatonic audience of any good three a.m. informercial, seemed to occur effortlessly, and, at first, like with most damage humans inflict on themselves, didn't even seem that bad. I certainly wasn't trying to lay bare my internal finger organs, but there they came. Alpana intervened, cauterized, soldered, bandaged, and gave me Advil for the ache and whiskey to dull the embarrassment. I spent the rest of the day drunk--and our Valentine's meal, filet mignon, grilled asparagus, and, probably, a potato of some sort, was brilliant, though perhaps a little difficult for me to consume with cutlery--but, to be honest with you, dear forsaken blog reader, left me more than epithelially marred.

I'm still a little fearful when I encounter the knife cleaning--and have, perhaps wisely, perhaps idiotically, limited my encounters with it to cleaning. Perhaps I will emerge. Possibly I should consider reporting only matters having to do with kitchen skills that involve spoons and whisks and blenders and coffeemakers only. What do you think?

Oh, and the new URL is www.charlesblackstone.com/blog. As easy to remember as it is to wreak havoc on a romantic holiday by trying to wash the fucking dishes.