Intro

“boudin sausage”?

What I hope to get into here is, mainly, a bit of fun, as I can’t take the Ron Paul Family Cookbook entirely seriously. Who could? It seems such an anomaly. That’s one thing I like about it.

I’m not out to ridicule the Ron Paul Family Cookbook – I actually find it quite charming that a major-party would-be presidential candidate would, in this day and age, (partially) raise funds for his campaign by selling such a humble, homey booklet. Would that all the candidates did the same! Would that they all – dare to dream! – only raise money by selling such trifles. Take that, Citizens United!

I ought to dispense with the political considerations forthwith: I live in Texas, so my vote in the upcoming presidential election will have exactly null effect. I don’t expect to vote for Representative Paul, or any other Republican. (I’ve almost always been out of step with how most everyone else around me votes, no matter where I’ve lived. Most often, the people I vote for lose. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.)

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any political party: I am, in the pollsters’ parlance, an independent. (Not that anyone has ever polled me on my opinions). Republicans are big on stirring in faith with politics, but the closest I myself come to that is by taking it on faith that no one wants to hear about my politics. They’d make for boring reading. So: though it’s inspired by a political artifact, I don’t intend there to be a lot of political opining in this blog… only as much as levity warrants.

I know, I know: By purchasing my copy of the Ron Paul Family Cookbook, I contributed to the campaign of a Republican, something I’m not otherwise known to do. (But for a copy of a Warm Sauteed Bananas recipe it was worth it.) I mostly disagree with Ron Paul, albeit less than I do most other Republicans (though, about the racist and otherwise bigoted ravings in his past newsletters, I can only strongly state that it is, at best, inexcusable for him not to have known better), and the points with which I do agree with him (not supporting a marriage amendment to the federal Constitution; dispensing with the war on drugs; opposing the so-called Patriot Act, wanting to bring the troops home) basically ensure he will never be a Presidential candidate in the Republican party. No one holding those positions could be – in his lifetime, anyway. (Dare to further dream!)

So… since it’s not mainly political, I intend for this blog to be mainly culinary. Though… that could be too fancy a word for it, and for my attitude toward cooking in general. Food-oriented, let’s say – a more aptly humble term. I do enjoy cooking, but day-to-day I don’t set out to cook anything particularly complicated. I’ve got (lots of) other things to do. So I tend to keep my meal preparation on the simple side. (It’s telling that when my father told me I could have just about any of his extensive collection of cookbooks it didn’t even occur to me to take his copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. [I did, however, openly covet his copy of Mr. Food Cooks Like Mama, with which he wouldn’t part.]) Do people still use the word “gourmet”? Whatever they’re calling it nowadays, I’m not it.

If nothing else, this cooking venture should lead me to present new dishes to my family.

And it will be the other members of my family to judge many of them, as I’m happily vegetarian, and not even the Ron Paul Family Cookbook could inspire me to want to eat the fish or meat dishes. I’ll gamely cook them, though (as I often cook non-vegetarian meals for my family). For the vegetarian dishes, I’ll include my own assessment in their rankings.

I have decided to follow the recipes in the Ron Paul Family Cookbook as closely as possible (with the sometime exception of fractioning some of the higher-yield ones). I will resist my usual urge to “healthify” the recipes: I won’t use whole wheat flour if the recipe simply calls for “flour”, for instance. (While doing so would be technically accurate, I’m just assuming it’s not what the Ron Paul family would do.) And much as I love the big ol’ jar of coconut oil sitting in my pantry, if a recipe calls for Crisco I’ll just see to it that I make my first-ever purchase of the canned shortening. I want to get the full effect of the recipes, to get the dishes as the recipes’ authors intend them to be.

So that’s the what and why. This little project is being fun already! Get me started cooking!