I love to cook. The whole process is cathartic and I’ll eat just about anything. I especially love to cook for others. I had a job for just a few weeks cooking for a home office with about 6 people in it, and it was possibly the most gratifying cooking I have ever done.

I have never considered myself a food snob…except maybe about sushi…which must be fresh and tasty…I will not eat it just anywhere.

I devour almost every book about food, and I love reading about chefs and everyday people and their relationships with food.

I’m proud to call myself a foodie!

But I love me a good food blog, and I’m looking forward to following yours. I’m excited to implement your scrambled egg tip this weekend, in fact.

I agree there is an aspect of foodie-ism which can be elitist (and often is), and I think it’s necessary for foodies who consider themselves foodies, as well as those who prefer not to be identified by the “foodie” label, to realize that not everyone shares a passion for food, and trying to force people to change their opinions or behaviors creates bad vibes and karma. However, when someone has an obvious interest in food, it becomes fun.

One little anecdote – the chef of a popular and excellent bistro in Boston called Sel de la Terre told me earlier this year that none of his line cooks was formally trained, but that instead he hired them for their interest in food, figuring that skills would come over time with interest and passion as the driving forces, and not the other way around. And based on what his staff creates on their own, as well as under his tutelage, I would agree.

In any event, I hope to educate and share the passion instead of brute forcing my “superior” (not!) knowledge down the gullets of others.

The people I know who describe themselves as “foodies” are *terrible* snobs. They don’t reject the foods you list, but they do seem to consider themselves superior to other mortals for their deep love of food. They gain palpable pleasure from demonstrating their knowledge of food to the people around them. (I’m not talking about infectious enthusiasm, mind you. I love that – on any subject – in anyone I meet.) No, this is a definite status thing, a deliberate marker of being in *that tribe*. For these people, eating at an obscure BBQ place or eating the guinea pig is absolutely requisite to maintaining their status as “more knowledgeable and adventurous than you”. I’ve also noticed that most of them don’t cook, for whatever that’s worth.

I love food but I’d be terribly insulted if anyone called me a foodie.