So the column name’s evidently cryptic enough to have attracted your attention.
Now.
How will I keep it?

Do you like books? If yes, continue.
Do you like food? Delicious. Please proceed.
Do you not-so-secretly loathe pretension and artificiality, especially when it comes to said books, said food? Then come right along – and don’t forget your reading/eating shoes ‘cause we’ve got places to
go – !

Through elementary- and almost all of middle school, I had neither my own room nor desk. The kitchen table, as such, was my default workspace. Over those years I also acquired the dubious habit of reading with meals. Text became – and remains – as much a part of mealtime as requisite aliment and implement. The table for me is a multifarious site: it represents, allows, encourages; it’s a place of production, potential, and most delectable pleasure. This weekly column, Table of Content, will be an invitation to partake of that all.

If you’re hoping to be regaled each Tuesday with rarefied commentary and authoritative pronouncements literary and/or gastronomic, Table of Content ain’t gonna do it for ya, buster. The preceding sentence, in fact, illustrates what’s to come: ToC will aim to delight and amuse (let’s hope) unaffectedly, casually yet deliberately. Its goal will be whetting all kinds of appetite through the sharing of bits of text and taste – and doing so without some of the pretense to expertise, or superiority, found elsewhere.

Most posts will pertain somehow to the following:

* Books ostensibly for children and young adults that big kids really should enjoy (reading shoes to cross target-age boundaries). Works with great writing and/or illustration, with or without chapters or even page numbers, novels, novellas, and picture books published way back when, a few years ago, or just off the hot press will all be game.

* Eateries whose décor, price list, and/or site-whore, Hip!(?)-peep rating reflects little, if anything, about the sincerity of their food (eating shoes to take the p(a)late). Ethnic joints, and those friendly to solitary dining, will be given special attention.

Animated version of William Steig’s Pete’s a Pizza (indefinite article NOT optional)

There may be posts more aptly ascribed to Table of Discontent or even Malcontent (a rant on ‘foodie-ism’ for example, or uncomplimentary notes on Non-Required Reading authors/editors). Regardless – when all’s said and done, all’s I know’s what I know; what I like; what I don’t. Since we’re grown-ass people with minds and tastes of our own, disagreement really is inevitable.

With that said:
My hope is that ToC, along with the welcome sharing of such personal difference, will stimulate every sense, and enable reader and writer alike to appreciate animal, vegetable, mineral, and word more fully and to their full.

So you joining this Table of Content or what?
Come on by next Tuesday for a first taste.
RSVP: Do sup with me.

***

For more by E. Tae Cha, visit http://www.evilmonito.com/author/elaine.

Published on 3 November 2009 | 2 |