I started really cooking while working at an independent bookstore. During slow times – which were many – I worked my way through the cookbook collection. I sat on a high stool behind the counter, copying recipes by hand onto multicolored index cards. The ecstatic response of my constantly encouraging, food-loving sweetheart kept me at it.
The seeds of a cook were planted in me long before that, though. My mom is a wonderful home cook, and – though we rarely really cooked together – she routinely bought me a spoonful of whatever she was cooking, with the question “what does it need?” I loved to go into the kitchen, stir the pot, and taste.
My tastes have, of course, changed since those years. Nowadays my mom is likely to wrinkle her nose when I tell her what I’m cooking, like the other night when I reported lentils with bacon, roasted Brussels sprouts with balsamic vinegar, and five-spice roasted mushrooms.
Cooking has become more and more a part of my life, and it seems like a corner of my brain is constantly pondering dinner, or breakfast, or dessert. Once I get into the kitchen, I want to put something fantastic on the table, but I’d rather not be in there all day. I like my cooking to be streamlined, but the results to be spectacular.
I have considered writing cookbooks, and have had an on-again off-again recipe tester e-mail group. But my cooking is often too loosey-goosey to easily condense into a recipe. A blog seems a natural choice, where I can write out formal recipes when that seems appropriate, but also just talk you through my experiments.
Thank you for joining me in the kitchen.
Talk to me!