About this blog and Harry Potter

Today I had the wonderful idea to take my lifelong passion for food and turn it to a creative outlet, blogging. Hopefully this blog will serve as an collection of ideas about anything to do with food; and I have many. Hopefully some of them will even be creative and interesting enough to merit sharing and enjoyment, which is the ultimate goal of any endeavor.

I've always had a strange knack for remembering food scenes in books and movies. It's some sort of weird talent that's always useful for a bit of trivia, but isn't particularly useful. Today, I had the idea to turn it to fun, with coming up with these memories from familiar books or movies and using them as meal-planning or kid-friendly, healthy-living, reading-tie-in ideas. Yes, that's a lot to try to accomplish, especially in combination, but we'll see where this goes from here.

So, without further ado is the first idea.

I like the sound of the TV in the background when I'm performing everyday drudgery like housework. It's my spoonful of sugar to help dishwashing go down. I like having a familiar movie, so I don't get distracted by following the details; I prefer something I know well and can tune in and out from. So today I chose Harry Potter, the first one. As part of the generation who grew up with the books, and being the type to read a book she likes backwards and forwards and over again, I'm quite familiar with the series.

This first idea comes from a scene from the book, towards the beginning. The Dursley family, lead by the brutish Uncle Vernon, is running from the Hogwarts letters addressed to Harry. In their desperation, they head to a stormy, miserable island in the sea. I'm working my way through Alexandre Dumas' massive Count of Monte Cristo at the moment, so I suppose the mental image is a familiar one, although even more desolate and lonely than the dismal Chateau d'If. Anyway, in Rowling's version, Hagrid bursts upon the scene (which before had only the paltry feast of a few bags of stiff-upper-lip potato crisps) with the revelation that Harry is a wizard and brings with him fat, juicy sausages and a semi-smushed birthday cake.

This book-reference would be particularly apt on a camping trip. Having never had the chance to go on one before, I imagine it'd be wonderfully classic to sit around a campfire roasting some nice sausages (or hot dogs) and passing around a jumbo bag of crisps (or your favorite potato chips--mine is the Canadian classic, ketchup!) while reading the chapter, maybe followed by some messy, mallowy smores and ghost stories? Or if the great outdoors are a bit wild for your tastes, plan a backyard/deck/patio/living room camping trip, retaining all the usual good food without the hassles of latrines and mosquitoes.