We know it is true, because we’ve heard it somewhere and because we have experienced it in someone’s over-creative food styling, like in easter eggs. Blue food is not good. And blue moods are not good either. I would delete my earlier post, but feel that might be dishonest, so instead I will express my revived self, restyle this dish with natural colors. Natural is in at the moment, but not too natural… just enough to feel the comfort. Out with blue… in with, uh, something natural that is not sad, but is not artificially happy either.

So, my slightly edited and elevated self steps back up to the blogging plate, late at night as usual to talk about what? Artificial colors? Well, that is a good start. That is not a good thing in food because it disguises the underlying flavor by distracting us with some flashing false color like E160 or E120 or something. The red dyes are the worst. They make you wired, in addition to numbing or dumbing down your palate. So, in addition to being nature girl, vegetarian (who cooks meat to please others, and because the hunter gene/race runs so strongly in her veins), amateur cook (note I did not say “chef”), I will wax lyrical about how to smarten up your palate… for a split second. I don’t want to become bored… and I really don’t want you to become bored either!

So here is the secret for avoiding blue food and blue moods. All it takes is paying a little bit of attention. If you are trying to impress someone you are more likely to think about how to dress up the occasion, or the food. If you are feeling blue the same is true… no reason to show yourself in all of your natural, teary eyed glory… or tired eyed glory either. So the temptation is to present something that looks like it might come from nature… something that looks beautiful when you can’t really be bothered. So you choose fake, inauthentic. But that only looks good to someone with blurry eyes, someone in your situation who can’t see very well. Dry your eyes (or open them) when you feel like this. And then look into the mirror (or refrigerator)… and try to get a handle on reality. Nature is beautiful in all of its warts. Think of a mushroom, or all of the different varieties of mushrooms. You love their ugliness and their authenticity, their un-pretentiousness, their mushroom-ness. Well, this is exactly the reason to avoid blue or red or yellow dye… or any dye!

Blue food is not good because it is not natural. But maybe blue people are ok, because being blue is natural from time to time? Maybe we need to be left in our own mushroomy, mis-shapen selves? And then we won’t feel so tempted to add artificial colors, to fake it. I’m pretty sure that feeling the blues brings out tremendous creativity, whereas blue-ing the food kills our taste buds. Its been about 25 years since I used any dye in food (well, except for the red velvet cupcakes I made for the 4th of July lunch here)… but only hours since I was blue. I’m thinking that it’s ok to go with the blues if it inspires me to dig down into my soul to cook food that is happy, or at least makes other people happy.