Welcome back to Bad Home Cooking. Now a Substack.

Why an old food blogger is joining the modern era

Let’s try this again.

About 15 of you know this already, but between 2006 and 2014, I wrote a blog called Bad Home Cooking. It was a place where I could write about what I wanted, when I wanted, without editorial oversight or deadlines or SEO or even propriety. No concerns about minimum photo-resolution requirements, either.

I had a lot of fun. As someone who’s paid the rent my entire life by writing for other people, the luxury of being able to create solely for myself was invigorating. I built a small and seemingly appreciative audience. So what if it was mostly friends and family.

But in 2014, after years of freelancing, I found myself with a full-time job offer, writing for a university that offered free tuition to spouses and children (provided they could get in). Who would say no to that? So I accepted the long commute and meager pay and hellish workload in exchange for a potential free ride for both kids, then teenagers.

As a storyteller, it was a dream job. Friendly, over-achieving students from around the world, brilliant faculty, passionate people working toward admirable goals. I loved being part of a team telling a larger story.

But it did get grindy. It was the kind of job that required work on the weekends to set up a better Monday experience. And that two-hour commute…I stopped blogging almost entirely.

Danged if I didn’t miss it, though. I ruminated on reintroducing Bad Home Cooking as a newsletter for most of the pandemic year, wondered if I should chronicle any failed attempts at making sourdough (I never dared). For whatever reason, I never pulled the trigger.

But it’s 2024 now. The nits have grown up and graduated college (of course they got in). One has launched, the other is threatening to do so as soon as they find a job. In gaming. (Which means I might have a dependent for a while yet, which is fine by me – we have similar tastes in food and movies). My parents are in their final chapters. And I quit retired from the above-mentioned job in April to return to freelancing and the flexibility it offers.

It’s taken me a minute to heal, recoup the inclination to create for myself, and screw up the courage to write for public consumption. I’ll be honest: 2020 took a toll.

And now, unlike in the gentle blogging days of 2006, I find that writing itself is an act of defiance. No longer much valued (see writer’s strike, see ChatGPT, see the slaughter of the game writers, see story after story from middle-aged magazine journalists laid off and laid low by AI), there’s precious little fame or fortune to be had by scribbling these days.

The market is saturated. Our inboxes are full. I shouldn’t waste my time.

But since when do I listen to sense?

There’s lots to write about. It’s a new world. I’m pushing 60, which is baffling but the older I get the less I know about anything. The ground has shifted. The youth had to explain the difference between gender and sex to me on a recent road trip. Again. Can’t you discern my pronouns by looking at me? I’ve always been progressive but now I feel like the zeitgeist has taken the party into another room and didn’t leave me the password or the necessary decoder ring.

Don’t even get me started on the shitshow that is politics. But this is the year, boys. What fodder!

And so back to Bad Home Cooking. With optional salt.

BHC: The Substack will feature a blend of new content and repurposed old content (which still holds up very nicely, IMHO, thank you), along with broader observations on life in these surreal times. I’ll share my hard-earned lessons on how to do the very basics: how to make rice. How to boil eggs. How to decorate sugar cookies. How to be a middle-aged mom and almost empty-nester. How to date when you’re old. How to deal with your parents’ decline. How to figure out another way to make a living when your profession has gone the way of the buggy whip…and do it in a way that might make you laugh.

Just kidding. There’s no way I’m ever dating again.

Because I didn’t know how to cook when this all started. At. All. My mom didn’t cook. And her mom, being Irish, didn’t cook either. My mother taught me how to drive a stick shift and write a killer resume but left me utterly ignorant in the ways of the roast chicken. I had to call my dad for a tutorial on how to make a baked potato—in my 30s!

I learned the hard way. One botched meal at a time. And when I say botched…well. You’ll see.

Let’s get this party started, shall we?