An Open Letter to Food Bloggers.

On a lark, I sent a quickly written blog post to a"Food Ninja" contest a twitter friend of mine was having. I didn't realize it would bother me so badly to lose.


I never win anything. Scratch that. I won a clock once for singing a milk jingle on the radio and I won the 1977 Stanislaus County Fourth Grade Spelling Bee.  I spelled pigeon with a d, but still took home the trophy. When I entered the next year all smug and presumptuous, I had my ass handed to me in the third round and haven't entered a thing since.

As a chubby tween-teen, I avoided anything that resembled a popularity contest. Student Council? Nope. School musical? Uh huh. Cheerleader? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND? I TOLD YOU I WAS FAT NOW GO AWAY. Sorry. Still sensitive.

I did that thing that fat girls do. I honed my wit and skill at the blow job. I dyed my hair bright orange and wore 14 colors of eye shadow in an attempt to get you to look up there instead of at my thighs.  I pretended that I didn't care that, even in high school, a "Butter-Face" (ask the nearest guy, he'll know) could win pretty much any contest as long as her ass was hot enough.

Thank the Jesus I can fry me some chicken and certain boys only need that, plus the afore-mentioned blowing to be happy. (A size 12 12 year old is also not the same thing as a size 12 43 year-old with D-cups, so I've got that working for me.

There is a whole new generation of Butterfaces out there, flaunting their shiny templates and enticing advertisement. Lots of bells and whistles, blogrolls, and a propensity to use y-ending adjectives every other word in a way that would make Tom Robbins vomit and cringe. Especially yummy. I can't do anything with yummy except punch you in the face and call you an asshole.

Where was I during the past three years as the locusts gathered and began chomping away at our last stash of honest-to-goodness intelligence, the written word?  When the world hands you Lil' Wayne and Spiderman 12, you are SUPPOSED to be able to turn to the page and find more than a recipe for corn muffins. Unless they are such spectacular corn muffins that you might blow your own grandpa to get the recipe or something, then by all means, please, share, otherwise, PIPE IT RETARD.  No one cares about your quinoa if they have half a brain. Why don't you grow some quinoa, give it to a starving family and take some beautiful photos of them in their trailer eating it with a YUMMY heirloom caprese salad.  That would also be spectacular.

How is it possible that recipe-copiers have taken over the world? If I want to know David Lebovitz's recipe for macaron don't you think I'd rather read HIS blog? I mean, he's famous and has published ACTUAL books.  What does the world need with your adaptation? ("i added chocolate chips to this.. you know, just to make it mine")  Honey, it does not make it yours. It just makes me click to David's blog to see what you may be leaving out in your effort to be original.

It's like God decided to take the two things I was good at, give them a worldwide stage, and then flooded that stage with every last brother, sister and cousin of the Jacksons and the Osmonds. Now I gotta fight through "Puppy Love" and three bullshit LaToya records to get noticed while they get panties thrown at them and all-expense paid trips to Eataly. 

Hopefully, the locusts will start eating themselves soon leaving behind those of us who can FOR REAL cook and FOR REAL write so we can crush their amazingly savoury (the u is for ugh) shells and make a YUMMY soup out of them.

I'ma get my pestle ready....

Brother Can You Spare A Cube Steak?

Hey y'all, I know it's been an eternity. Here's what Team Borowiec is up to......

In 1996, Gregg Mortensen decided to give up a lucrative career and comfortable life, moving to Afghanistan to open schools for the children there who had a less than zero chance of education. These schools were built plank by plank on the sides of mountaintops by the determination of ordinary people who possessed an extraordinary need to give something to people less fortunate that would sustain them in a way they had never thought possible. Now there are books and TED Talks and probably a movie with Liam Neeson in a beige caftan at some point.

I'm a lucky, lucky ho, because my man's idea of altruism was giving up a six-figure income to go work for a manufacturer of solar inverters in lovely Rocklin Ca.  BFN, yes, but not the kind of BFN where burkas and M-16's are the standard. Even with a 60% pay cut it's (probably) still better than picking rocks out of my ass all day and fighting off scorpions.
When he told me what his plan was I was a) Glad we'd given up the ditch digging fantasy that had been rolling around the dinner table for the past few months and b) hopeful that the move from Northern Tijuana would do us a little good. Los Angeles has a decent taco, but the fact that it takes 40 minutes to go 12 miles is not enough to make up for forty pigs worth of carnitas.

So we gave notice, said goodbye to our resort-style apartment at the beach, and landed in Northern California just as it got all nice and grey and suicidal. Oh, and did I mention the trash-pickers?

Now Mama gets to rejoin that special group of folks known as the poverty-stricken. Normally a group of miscreants who couldn't get off the meth or make it through junior college. We're like the King and Queen of the white trash here and as soon as I can afford it, I'm going to the WalMart to replenish my wardrobe of  Miley Cyrus-wear and hit the Dollar Store HARD.