For those of you who love to eat, experiment, and have more money in knives than in jewelry: this is a call for solidarity. We, the culinarily inclined, must stick together. We must form a collective to protect ourselves from the frighteningly white-bread environments in which so many of us eke out a living. We have fended off snarky comments about our “weird” lunchbox offerings and our online orders of imported olive oils for far too long.
The time has come to pledge our allegiance to one another, for none of us is alone. At this very moment, I promise you, a comrade of the food snob species is, believe it or not, ALSO contemplating making their own kimchi from scratch. And you need each other’s help.
This is our time to rise up together, taking our palates, the greater food landscape, and our nerdy food knowledge to new heights. Our community of cooking will be defined by a new set of guiding gastronomic principles, ones that are contained in the following manifesto and that I hope that you, too, will join us in embodying:
1. We will search high and low, undeterred by obstacles, for the best versions of the most seemingly basic ingredients.
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Because, no, table salt just doesn’t compare to Himalayan pink salt.
2. We will have several excuses at the ready at all times for why we are declining the somehow simultaneously dry AND soggy deli sandwich tray at catered events.
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The key is to graciously explain, “Oh, no thank you, I’m not hungry,” or, “Oh, no thank you, I already ate.” Because, yes, we will have definitely already eaten when we attend events with said deli sandwich trays.
3. We will consider grocery shopping sacred time.
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Thirty minutes will be inevitably spent meditating on all the possible applications of the wine-soaked chevre in hand, invariably coming to the conclusion that it is just so versatile that we actually HAVE to splurge.
4. We will watch Chopped on the Food Network like most people watch The Bachelor.
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- Don’t be alarmed when you see us throwing our matcha-dusted popcorn at the screen. No, Mark, twenty minutes is not enough time to braise a short-rib. And yes, Heather, YAS, that is exactly what we too would have done with quail egg and pineapple.
5. We will be known amongst all friends and loved ones as the ultimate restaurant database.
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We will pride ourselves on being a source for all eatery recommendations far and wide, in our own cities, in cities we visited once for the weekend, and in cities we’ve never been to but just read a really great article on a mom & pop pasta shop that’s hidden on a downtown side street. And yes, you should totally check out every single one of our recommendations.
6. We will recognize that even the most plebeian of ingredients can be elevated to the highest of arts.
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Because yes, we appreciate the phenomena of a perfectly fried Oreo just as thoroughly as we appreciate the finickiest of French pastries.
7. We will probably (definitely) not share our food.
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(But we will definitely share the Google Spreadsheet documenting our personal reviews of all of the restaurants we have ever visited…)
8. We will accompany one another on palate-expanding restaurant adventures.
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To places where we can eat things like grasshoppers and jackfruit larb and spices straight from the forests of Thailand. Because no foodie eats alone.
9. We will not judge each other for standing up at restaurant tables and rearranging the dishes millimeters at a time to get that perfect, drool-worthy Instagram picture.
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Our foodstagram-account followers are waiting.
10. We will cook for each other.
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11. We will write for each other.
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12. We will accept each other, even when our food-freak flags are flying at astronomical heights.
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13. …And we will harbor a collective disdain for Velveeta.
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