To me, the expression Play a Good Knife and Fork * (the original name of this blog) evokes a number of sentiments related to food and eating: a hearty appetite; gourmandism; a strong penchant for good food; epicurism. You get the idea. These are in fact the original intentions of the phrase, you’ll find, if you scope it out online. Of course, this blog is dedicated to deliciously discussing Why What You Eat Matters, not just food, which is also the subtitle to a number of classes I teach. That said, I couldn’t resist this clever turn of phrase that brings together concepts of food, eating, and health in pithy theatrical parlance. It seemed the perfect fit given I grew up acting, and theatre is my other love alongside food and science.
Nevertheless, some of the reactions I’ve gotten to Play a Good Knife and Fork do not reflect its etymology or my intent, putting emphasis on the word “good” rather than on “play.” Meh. I would rather not be likened to a a nutrition nanny given my foodie background and penchant for delicious desserts and creative cocktails. I am a moderate, and my focus is on sharing my love of divine food, creative cooking, and nutrition science in as entertaining a way as possible. (Just peruse the blog contents and the pages On Recipes and About Me; you’ll get the idea.)
I have therefore switched the original title Play a Good Knife and Fork and its adjoining subtitle Cooking and Eating the P.K. Way to The Nutrition Doctor is in the Kitchen: Where Science is Sexy and Healthy Eating is Spectacular. I still prefer the original title, given it’s more, er, playful and less, sigh, pedantic. However, I can’t stand being misunderstood, and my doctorate is in fact in nutrition, so I’m trying this title on for size and we’ll go from there. My aim is to make science sexy, after all, and it does differentiates me at the outset from the rest of the people out there writing about nutrition (but shouldn’t be). I’d rather you learned all of this in more suble ways than the title, like the posts themselves or the About Me page, for example. But no one reads that stuff, either, I’ve learned, so what’s a girl to do?
So that’s the story on the title(s).
Like you even care!
Well, even if you don’t, there you have it.
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* In case of literary interest, the expression appears in Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit (c. 1855) and Benjamin Malkin’s translation of LeSage’s Adventures of Gil Bias (c. 1809). However, an earlier reference is found in A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (c. 1726, anonymous author, Samuel L Macey, editor), which I learned thanks to Project Gutenberg. (Sounds like a fascinating read, eh?)
