I love the blog community.
It has become very fashionable lately to attack social media. But blogs, for over a decade, have been a reliable source of information for me. And a place to build relationships.
I am not referring merely to the authors who share their thoughts with us. Authors would toil in vain without readers to ponder their meanderings. What Marcel Duchamp said about the art of painting applies equally to the art of writing.
The spectator completes the art. The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.
The great thing about blog relationships is you never know where they will lead.
A couple of months ago my blog chum Jennifer Rose told me she had purchased an Instant Pot on Amazon -- and it had changed her life. She said I needed one.
I should have listened better. Jennifer has never steered me wrong in the years we have known one another reading each other's work.
For some reason, I thought an Instant Pot was a slow cooker -- one of those 1970s fad items gifted by grandmothers, to be tucked away in a dark corner of a lower kitchen cabinet.
Just over a week ago, Jennifer and I were in the midst of a post mortem on the Kavanaugh confirmation process when she asked me if I had looked into buying an Instant Pot. I told her I had no interest in a slow cooker.
Elizabeth II may be Defender of the Faith, but Jennifer is one of The Defenders of the English Language. If I had given the name much thought, I would have realized "instant" and "slow" are not synonyms.
Her defense of the Instant Pot was so eloquent, a jury would have found Brutus not guilty of assassinating Julius Caesar. It sounded like a miracle appliance.
So, I ordered one from Amazon.Mx. At 8 this evening, the man from Estafeta (rather than DHL) showed up just as I drove into my garage.
When I opened the box, I discovered what looked like an R2D2 impersonator. And that is not a bad thing. After all, familiarity and modernity are not always fellow handmaidens.
I was not surprised to discover my little robot has a very short electrical cord. That seems to be standard issue in Mexico. The blender. The food processor. The toaster oven. All have cords so short, I need to be a contortionist to use what are sardonically called labor-saving devices.
It turns out this cord is not a Mexican truncation. Glancing through the safety warnings (Yes. I do read them. I am a lawyer, after all), the cord is short to avoid accidents that will pull the whole pressure cooking mess onto some poor unsuspecting soul -- like hot oil on invaders scaling the castle walls.
The pot is now sitting on my kitchen work table awaiting the arrival of a much-acclaimed Instant Pot cookbook. "Cookbook" is probably the wrong word. I looked at a sample of it on my Kindle. It is a cooking concept book. Rather than being stuffed with recipes, it teaches new users of the Instant Pot how to manipulate its characteristics to make healthy meals.
By mere chance, another of my blogger pals, Leslie Limon, has a new cookbook that will be released on 30 October. Everyday Mexican Instant Pot Cookbook: Regional Classics Made Fast and Simple. You can pre-order either a paperback or Kindle version. An Instant Pot and Mexican food. Jennifer was correct. It is versatile.
You can brace yourselves for more cooking tales from my kitchen. I am looking forward to sharing my failures. After all, that is how we truly learn.
If any of you have Instant Pot tales, let's put Duchamp to the test. A tale read is a work of art completed.
I may have just proven my own point.
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