Call me mainstream…

…But I like Bobby Flay! Yes, yes I know the purists cringe and I’ve frequently heard offers to trade him in for a Nigella Lawson or an Anjum Anand :D. And while the Nigellas, Nigels, Anjums and Chings are deliciously creative, bordering on demifoodgodness, Bobby does hold his own. I’m certainly not saying I prefer the one over the other. God, if I had to choose, hellz yea… it’d be the eloquent almost poetic, ‘watch me as I conjure impossibly amazing food out of…. well… nothing’ British chef brigade! Bobby Flay, though, does what he likes while giving his audience what they want. And that I respect! I guess what I’m saying is that all of these various chefs put together is what makes a fun food channel experience for me.

Now I hate a preachy blog as much as the next guy. But lets face it, the medium does have a certain ‘soapboxiness’ to it that’s hard to resist - so indulge me in the odd paragraph or ten along the way…

In my life, for the most part, I’ve had extreme doses of ‘lets be unique’. Unless you were wildly, almost self-indulgently ‘different’, nobody noticed you. Mainstream, therefore, has been something to shudder at. Uggghh, who wants to be the guy that doesn’t get it? Or shudder-shudder-cringe-shudder, the guy who’s stuff you get instantly without a Eureka moment? 

This was the way my life went. Achingly pretentious. But hey that was partly because that was the way of young advertising ‘peeps’ in the 90’s (lets skip right past the ‘old’ jokes, thank you very much). And partly because I’m just stupid!

Oh don’t get me wrong, I loved it at the time. Thrived on it. Wouldn’t have it any other way. But after a while it gets old. Like constantly walking in heels… Yes, they are a big part of who you are, but every now and then you need comfy flip flops.

A life that shuns mainstream? Not for me anymore.

Took me a while to get to that realization though. Years of wearing statement ‘ugly’ clothes (well not ugly ugly, I do have a fashion sense :P); never owning more than a couple (literally – one, two) of pairs of shoes and many other things just to make a point. And the only thing I achieved, especially more recently in a city like Dubai, was feeling bad about myself. Call me conformist and weak but I just feel better able to face the world, take it on and even make it buy my point of view when I’m on the other side of some sparkly make up J. And guess what, I’ve stopped apologizing for that. This extends so far beyond physical appearance to music, books, movies, the people I hang out with – everything! I now do what makes me happy, not what my warped little head tells me I ‘should’ be doing.

So here’s to Bobby Flay. Thanks to the likes of whom I can stand up and say… I’m RandomRambler, and I’m mainstream. Its kinda nice!