A New Venture: Brown-Rice Krispie Bars

I should have chosen a different name for this blog. My intention when I started it in mid 2006 was simply to learn more about classic French cooking.

I also wanted to learn more about blogging so I could help my college freshmen and sophomores add news blogging to their basic journalism skills.

As it turned out, none of them really wanted to blog. They preferred text messaging, which of course has grown by leaps and bounds in the past six years. They liked short and punchy.

Blogs, I eventually figured out, have more appeal to Boomers and Xers. I don't mean to generalize, but that's my observation. That's not to mean that twentysomethings don't blog: They do. In droves. And I love reading their posts and pondering their perspective. My students just didn't jump on the blogging bandwagon.

When I started this blog, I had a fairly flexible schedule, and I could dabble with recipes that were, if not complex, not exactly simple. But that changed when I took a new job. Now, five years later - as you know - I've left that job to "rewire."

What I really want to say here is this: I need another food blog venue. Because I like what I call simple comfort food a lot, especially as cold weather approaches. I want a blog that focuses on experiments with inexpensive meals. It's not always fancy at my house and it's not always French.

I need a place where I can write about my burning desire to elevate things like tuna salad and Tater Tot casserole.

At the same time, I want French Kitchen in America to slowly return to its culinary roots, focusing on rustic French soups and stews and classic provincial dishes. And of course, desserts. I will focus on eating locally as much as possible. Every once in a while I might try something fancy.

A few years ago, I started a blog that I used only occasionally for, uh, let's call it venting. I named it after a post I did here, following a visit to one of my favorite niegborhoods in Paris.

That blog, A Humble Little Cafe, will now become a repository of down-home and sometimes only partly homemade recipes. I make no apologies.

It will also be a spot for experiments. I have time for that now.

My first experiment was Brown Rice Krispie Bars. Not too bad.