Demographics of Dreamwidth, in nutshell

[prodigy]

What Dreamwidth does not have as a field on its user profile: "Tumblr Username"
What Dreamwidth does have as a field on its user profile: "Ravelry Username"

...



Oh, Dreamwidth. Never change. Keep on living that dream. width

Comments

[prodigy]

I just had a long IM discussion of knitting with a friend yesterday. My conclusion was that it had too much of a steep learning curve to producing something as useful as the store-bought equivalent to be worth my time in general, compared to, say, cooking -- it's a lot easier to make food that's better than what you could get at a cheap restaurant than it is to make clothing that's better than what you could get at a cheap department store. Some of this has to do with technology and the fact that clothing technology is far too expensive and unwieldy for most people to afford, blah blah the factory model, why individual artisans were driven out of business by the industrial revolution, synthetic fabrics, etc. Point being, Target probably sells better mittens than any I could make with my two hands and some wool yarn.

Of course, I can't really cook either. In fact I pretty much live the pathetic do-nothing-yourself existence of the American wage slave, with all the high-fructose corn syrup and plastic waste that implies. But I don't have a Facebook! Something in me objects to the notion of any of my acquaintances having my contact info and being able to contact me and put the onus on me to either refuse to answer them or let them in, and by something in me I think I mean "my desire to ever be anonymous for a second ever again."

[gloss]

*nodnodnod* it is FAR thriftier to buy sweaters, socks and hats, whether new or used, than it is to make them. The fetishization of yarn in knitting circles is over the top, so much so that outsiders don't believe me most of the time. People competitively post pictures of their yarn stashes to outdo each other.

On the other hand, when I can't write (which is, uh. Usually), spending the time making something can help satisfy some of my productive/creative urges.

But cooking is the best bang for one's buck, budget-wise and creatively. If only my stove and oven were more than baseline functional...

[prodigy]

Ah, cooking. Cooking is a complicated subject. It's unquestionably cheaper, healthier, and better-tasting than the stuff you could buy commercially made on anything but the most extravagant of budgets. And I'm pretty broke at the moment. But here I am, still eating at Arby's and heating up Easy Mac, and it's gotten me thinking about why I still don't slice the time out of my day to cook even though I know I'd be less broke if I successfully did -- the key being, successfully did. I think there are a lot of factors people don't necessarily talk about as to why some people grow up learning to cook and some people don't, and it's not as easy as just "buy a beginners' cookbook!"

For one, the whole beginners' cooking culture is totally Western-centric. I didn't grow up with the same KIND of food when I ate at home at all than a lot of people in cooking communities, so when I hear the same old advice of "buy the Joy of Cooking!" I don't know how to say, well, I'm lactose-intolerant, I don't particularly like meat or sweets, and I grew up on East Asian cooking. The fact is, the kinds of grocery stores my family had access to growing up (on the West Coast) just don't exist where I've lived in recent years (on the East Coast) so my "go-to" simple childhood comfort foods that I do know how to make are just not as simple when I have to think for a moment where to even get the right kind of kimchi. Sure, I know I could drive 25 minutes out of my way to do so -- or I could pick up a chicken sandwich from a drive-thru and some coffee or something else that's promised to reap instant blood sugar rewards. Point being, beginning cooking and cookability and simple cooking communities are great for white Americans reared on white Americana, but their idea of diversity tends to be, "ooh, I picked up some curry powder from Whole Foods." Which... yeah, so, hey, drive-thru, about that chicken sandwich!

More complications: I wasn't really raised on home cooking at all. I was a latchkey, more or less, and one of my biggest taste memories of childhood is Kraft Mac & Cheese; I doubt I'm the only one who doesn't have much knowledge or experience of cooking, kitchen cleaning, how and when to use fresh produce, and all that jazz but a lot of knowledge and experience of what fast food chains are open late and what ingredients you can miss in box processed food and still not be missing much, when you could just add extra skim milk instead of the butter, that sort of thing. I wonder if people who grew up on potlucks and family cooking traditions realize that they gained a lot of knowledge that people who didn't utterly lack and are not easy to learn.

Aside from that, there's more stuff like the fact that if you don't use ingredients you're wasting them and cooking as a beginner holds an element of risk and possible waste that prepared food doesn't... but at the same time, despite all that, I know I should cook more, so I am always thinking about it. I dunno.

... "so what are my thoughts on cooking" err yeah sorry about that, THAT WASN'T MEANT TO BE TL;DR

[thez]

Depends on what you qualify as "cooking" I think, as well. I almost never ate out in AZ due to budget constraints. Got beans? Got rice? Got chilies? Can you boil these things? BAM. Even though the beans were usually, in fact, from a can. I dunno, I think if you didn't grow up with home cooking you kind of have to work your way up from putting processed food together to using more raw and unprocessed ingredients, and if you threw together a meal that happened to include boxed mac and cheese and something from a can I would personally count that as cooking.