Shepherd's Pie

This post has nothing to do with food.

Well, not literally at least. I used to specifically plan my meals over the course of a week just so I'd have the right kind of leavings to make Shepard's Pie as a special dinner treat to cap off my weekend. I've been told one can make a Shepard's Pie using fresh ingredients rather than left-overs, but that's as near a definition of blasphemy as this Atheist is comfortable with. There's a brilliant form of magic that occurs when bits of other meals join together in a warm gravy bath beneath a nurturing blanket of flaky crust. The culinary among you might know this magic as "layering" - creating a depth of flavor by utilizing a number of techniques and ingredients to form a single delicious dish. You know how your grandmother's Menudo or Bangers and Mash was better than the versions you find at even the best restaurants? It was better because she used the decimated ruins of family meals. Layering Au Naturale.

Yes, yes... I know I said this post had nothing to do with food and then immediately dove into a full paragraph about nothing but. Or so it seems... oh ho ho.

When defining myself, I typically toss out the word "writer" as a front runner. It's been years since I was actually paid for anything I wrote, unless you count the advertising revenue earned from the webcomic, but I consider myself a writer the same way I consider myself a geek - it's not a profession, but an aspect of who I am as an individual. When I come across a hunk of life's flotsam that inspires me (be it to bliss or rage) my thoughts instantly churn toward what I might write about it, how I might mold it into a script or dissect it in a blog post.

Have you ever met a chef who held left-overs in disdain? Who grimaces and gags at the thought of creating a dish with the scraps of an over-abundant table?

I've spent much of my life saddled with the writer's equivalent of that ignorant attitude. Faced with mere scraps of ideas I'll invariably choose to toss them in the bin. If it's an idea I'm especially fond of I might store it for a bit first, shoving it to the back of my mind where it's ravaged by mental mold and decay. Inevitably I encounter these seeping packages of inspiration whilst laboring through an insomnia inspired bout of psychic housecleaning and wince; like a hoarder coming across the desiccated corpse of a once loved cat.

Right about now you should be wondering if there's a point to all this long-winded hyperbole. There is.

The point:

Please take notice of the new "Shepherd's Pie" tag. Posts thusly labeled are purposely comprised of disjointed commentary. They may coalesce into the literary equivalent of comfort food, or coagulate like potted meat... but at least they're not going to waste.



PS - Thanks to @munkymu of Goth Bunnies for pointing out my original misspelling of "shepard's pie".