My first and only attempt to create a cooking video ended after the first thirty seconds, when I explained in my cute, but serious voice, “I have gas, and I know how to control it.”

But that’s not what I wanted to say in the video. I wanted to say, “I like to cook with gas, because I can control it.”

I can’t control anything these days, my gas, my bangs, or my insatiable appetite for sweet, salty, crunchy foods. In fact, the last thing I can control is my gas. And if you are reading this and are under fifty, you might not know what I mean, but over fifty, please. This is no time to be shy about farting. It, ahem, binds so many normal everyday things in life.

For instance, if you can have hot, steamy sex with a belly full of gas, I’d like to know. If you women can shimmy into an A-line dress with a belly full of gas, without a pair of Spanx, call me, or you men out there with your five-button down Lucky jeans, ditto. If you can drive for five hours straight without farting, then we can talk.

I didn’t want to talk about gas in my cooking video and that was three years ago. Come to think of it, I don’t want to talk about cooking and gas now either. Although food and gas tend to go together, don’t they?

So let’s crawl down that rabbit hole a few minutes.

I guess “it” depends on your diet and your health history. A diet high in beef and gassy-type foods, you’re gonna fart. Too much fiber in your diet, yup, bloating, gas, and farting eventually comes next. Stressed out? Gas. Too many pretzels? Gas.  Milk? Yup, gas. Smoking? Yessiree, gas.

I don’t eat a lot of beef, keep my eye on the fiber intake, downward dog is in my weekly routine and I don’t smoke. But I did have an intestinal tumor a few years ago, so my health is an issue in my gas-controlling department. Besides all of that, it’s no secret, we can’t control everything. As we get older, the body tends to slow down, sag and droop.

That video faux-pas? Or maybe it was subconscious thinking (for you Freudian types out there). Anyway, that’s just how things go in my life. Like when I started publishing sustainable seafood essays and recipes? We immediately moved to Kentucky. Come to think of it, that move hasn’t stopped me from writing about sustainable seafood, it just made it a little harder (and more expensive) to get access to fresh fish. Lord knows, we food writers tend to make no money. Tilapia with bacon, anyone?

I digress.

Since that video, I haven’t created another video about cooking, I only think about creating cooking videos. Hell, I’m just trying to eke out a life writing stories and recipes.

But back to the control issue. It’s not like I don’t know what the rules for success as a food writer and cookbook author. I read plenty of how-to’s. I write every day. I read. I’m always learning-whether I take a new writing class or work on new recipes-I put in my time, you know, the stuff of a food writer. Focus and control.

My food-writing motto is simple. Cook. Eat. Write. Repeat. But it should also include create stimulating, enjoyable self-deprecating cooking videos, build a marketing platform worthy of an invite to the Big Five publishing houses, or at least aspire to rank in the top ten on Amazon. And how to avoid getting gas.

Yes, “it” should be addressed. But not in a cooking video.

So on my end, I’ll eat less pretzels. Plus now I cook with electric.