The new CityMama design is about to be rolled out, and to go along with it, I need a tagline. Just so's you know, I'm going to be sorta kinda merging the food blog into CityMama. It's something I've been toying with for over a year now, and I think I've finally figured out a way to do this.
As I talk with my family, I've realized that the memories we hold most dear are cooking and eating together. Watching my mom make homemade pasta or jam or Yorkshire pudding. Harvesting corn or arugula from our garden. Filling cream puffs with pastry cream. My brother and I talk almost every day and are always asking each other what we are cooking or reminiscing about fun childhood food memories like drinking Borden Frosteds or making Indian Fry Bread because we saw them do it on Zoom back in the day.
My sister is thinking about quitting her job because the chefs she work for have no deep food memories. We both agree that that is sad. I mean, my sister and I can have a two hour conversation about the nuances of ramen or Spanish vs. Italian cured meats. We would drive for 3 hours just to get a great bowl of noodles, but the people she works with just don't obsess about food like that. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to eat in that restaurant. (And yes, I admit we are weird. Blame our mother.)
More and more I realize how important creating those memories are. When I cook, I think about my family or guests will react. Every time. I want them to love what I am making, but I also want to either create great memories or unearth latent memories. Layers and layers of delicious memories from today and far away.
One of my favorite smells in the whole world is the scent of garlic and onions sauteeing in olive oil. It will always remind me of my mom. That smell triggers a whole host of memories for me mostly about food, but also serves as a jumping off point for countless memories that start off being about food but quickly veer off from there onto other things. That's the idea for the new CityMama.
As my children get older and as parenting them isn't the predominant force in my life anymore (or at least writing about it isn't...in fact, I'm kinda over writing about parenting), I want to move on to other interests. This is partly a Project: Life Change as well. I've thought about shuttering CityMama, calling it a day and moving everything over to the Family Food, but in the end I've decided that CityMama should transition along with me. It's Family Food that will shut its doors eventually, and all that content will shift over here.
It's also a reaction to some snobby and humorless food bloggers that are convinced that "parents don't read food blogs" (a direct quote I overheard). There is definitely a feeling amongst some in the food blogosphere that parents feed their kids crap and shouldn't ever take kids to restaurants godforbid! Maybe those food bloggers were raised by parents that didn't teach them anything about food so perhaps that assessment would be true for those bloggers. I'm not one of those food bloggers/parents and I'm certainly not raising my kids that way. Hence, another reason (though very low on the totem pole) for the transition. And, of course, I hope you'll still read.
The new CityMama design almost done, but it needs a tagline. I'm not a huge fan of the tagline mainly because I'm so fickle (though I still love my "Mama ain't raisin' no fool), but I do want something that communicates my love of cooking with my love of sharing stories. I have something in mind, but I want to know if you have better ideas. If I pick your tag I'll send you a care package full of books n stuff that PR people send me. Plus maybe something to do with unicorns and a signed photo of Dog the Bounty Hunter. (And if you are close to me, you can come over for dinner!)
Help a sistah out?
