Avoiding the chic revival of a time-honored skill

Dear God, someday I'm going to learn to stay well clear of the Los Angeles Times' overly precious food section.

When I saw a brief mention in this morning's section of an LA-based canning/preserving blog, I ignored my self-preservation instincts and clicked right on through to the single most pretentious, tortured, overwrought pile of drivel I've ever read.

I have a master's degree in English with honors, so I'm probably safe in believing my reading comprehension is up there. Shouldn't have a problem trying to read a food blog about CANNING and PRESERVING, right? I mean, h*ll, as my friend Gretchen says, "it ain't rocket surgery."

But no. It was an exercise in sentence length, bad poetry disguised as bad prose, and a whole lot of misinformation. Here is an example:

August is the season of goodness, of pause and of wonder. Its table is abundant and its vibrant flavors seasoned by the poignant knowledge that September will soon bring apples, grapes, game birds and cool nights—autumn.

Bullsh*t, and this writer knows it. August is the season of irritation, road rage and sweat. Summer produce takes the edge off some of those problems, to be sure, but nobody's seen goodness, pause or wonder in an LA August since the 1984 Olympics.

Also, the most poignant thing about September around here is the worsening traffic as school starts up again. And the wildfires--NOT conducive to a bad riff on Keats' greatest ode.

Oh, and cool nights in autumn? Has this guy MET Los Angeles in the autumn? Evidently not. Evidently somebody has a deep pathology involving wish fulfillment.

This blog is, predictably, a paean to the latest designer must-have ideal: simplicity. Trendies all over town are using enormously complicated strategies to outstrip each other in "living simply." Perhaps someone can tell me what in H*LL is so simple about peaches in LAVENDER syrup? Or a 10-ounce bag of huckleberries that cost $10? Or "saving the season" by searching far and wide for bitter almond, which just isn't a grocery-store staple in ANYONE'S neighborhood? That's not simple, dude. That's undisguised showing off.

I don't need to tell you that this guy has a coterie of fawning admirers. And they're all named things like Akasha, Usha, Lily, Michel and Anna, which I'll bet you my last dollar is pronounced AH-nuh. This class of writer NEVER has any friends named, say, Lisa or Fred or Carol (some DO admit to a few Caroles, however) or Heather or Jason. They don't know any Waynes or Rogers or Tonys or Vickis (this last because all the Victorias in their rarefied world restyled themselves "Tori" about 15 years ago). Only really breathy-sounding, borderline exotic names--even if their owners are fourth-generation white folks from Pasadena--get on the A list.

Frankly, I don't have the canning/preserving chops to start an honest-to-God canning blog, but, on reflection, I'm not so sure I want to refine such an old-fashioned skill by learning from the blogosphere anyway. I'm gonna dig out a dog-eared cookbook and go chat with an old lady somewhere.

What do you guys think? (I CAN say "you guys" when I mean "yunz" or "ustedes" or "y'all." I'm a native daughter of Southern California and that IS our second-person plural.)

The "I Love Books" brigade is driving me crazy

In the spirit of curmudgeonly Monday . . .

I am sick to death of people who loudly and repeatedly tell the world about their passion for books.

The series of photos labeled "Library Porn" that's currently making its way around the Internet is just the latest example of this self-congratulatory nonsense.

It's a shame because it really does contain some lovely photos, but I'm afraid I was saturated years ago by the "I love books" series of t-shirts and tote bags that proclaimed their wearers' deep and abiding need to be surrounded by books. I've had to read way too many chests that boasted of incurable bibliophilia, and way too many badly calligraphed, environmentally sensitive, unbleached cotton tote bags reminding me that Thomas Jefferson could not live without books.

In the same vein, one of Dorothy Parker's characters breathlessly confesses that she just LOVES flowers. The narrator snidely observes (I'm paraphrasing) that the poor character is laughable and pathetic if she thinks this characteristic sets her apart from the herd.

And I feel the same way about the braying bibliophiles. Most of the ones I've run into spend more time emoting about loving books, needing books, being unable to breathe unless they're surrounded by books, than they do reading or discussing actual books.

Besides the cringe-inducing self-consciousness associated with the offhanded allusion to your wonderfulness because you love books, the premise of the thing is way too broad. Why are you special--who DOESN'T love books?

But WHAT books--Victorian fiction? Early 20th-century drama? Auto repair manuals? Hymnals? Illustrated children's books from the 1950s? Literary criticism? Do you cling to your dog-eared P.G. Wodehouse paperbacks? And don't tell me "all of them--they all fascinate me--they're ALL my dearest friends." That's way too facile, in addition to being nauseating. (It also tells me you're not reading at depth.)

You want to tell the world how erudite you are? You want admiration on a massive scale? You want that Barbara Tuchman "humanity in print" t-shirt to really mean something? Fine, terrific. There are several ways of scaling that mountain.

But first, shut UP about loving books and go home and READ ONE. Read it well, read it thoroughly, read it several times. Then share it --the book itself--its themes, its characters, its settings, its artistic/political/social value. H*ll, if it was a dog and you hated it, share THAT.

But please, for the love of God, stop telling the world what a rara avis you are because you love books.