When I'm not in the kitchen, I'm an auditor for a major accounting firm. I read modern literature. I collect CD's even though most people long ago moved on to digital content. I grow herbs that I never actually use in my cooking because I can't stand the thought of cutting their branches off. I have three cats who follow me around my apartment and watch me cook, but then turn up their noses if I drop a morsel (is cat chow that yummy??). I think Destin, Florida, may be paradise (see picture, left), but then again, I've never been to Hawaii. I love to travel. I would spend my last cent on a good book or cookbook and go hungry.
FAQ
Where do you get your recipes?
All over the place. The internet. My disgustingly large cookbook collection. Old family recipes. Out of my head. Most of the stuff I find gets altered in some way, either due to swapping ingredients or because I think adding/subtracting ingredients will make it taste better. Printed recipes are a starting point. A suggestion. But I still like to let you know where I started from.
Do you really eat all that food yourself?
Uh, no. I admit I'm a glutton, but that would be taking it to whole 'nother scary level. Most of the time I make a portion of the total recipe, but I post the whole thing since most people are cooking for more than one. At least you know that it works when you cut it down since I obviously have.
How did you learn to cook?
My mom. Chocolate chip cookies. The patience of a saint. And then she went back to work when I and my siblings were older, and someone had to start dinner. Granted, they were pretty simple meals. But you gotta start somewhere. The rest is cooking classes, reading cookbooks like they were fine literature, and experimenting. Tasting all of the ingredients. Buying random unknown things at the grocery store and forcing myself to use them.
Is there anything you won't eat?
Bugs. Brains (have you heard of Creutzfeldt-Jakob??). Lima beans. Casu marzu, the infamous cheese with maggots. Okay, anything with maggots. Ghost peppers and their ilk. Octopus tentacles, but that's only because they give me stomach cramps. I know, weird. I really haven't met much I won't try at least once. Like century egg (never again!).
What won't I find here?
I am not a professional photographer with a studio, so you will not find professional photographs with artfully spilled ingredients on artfully arranged backgrounds. I only have a small apartment, hence no room to store 500 different serving platters, so you will not see that either. I also have a budget, so you will not see me decorating with a bunch of roses just for the heck of it. I also have a full-time job, and what I'm making is generally my dinner, so you will not see 5,000 pictures of the dish from every imaginable angle, mostly because I'd like to eat it before it gets cold. When I find a sugar daddy, get a cookbook contract, or marry a professional photographer, then you will see all of these things.
What will I find here?
Recipes for delicious food. Weird ingredients you were afraid to mess with on your own. Reassurance that even though you're not a professional photographer with a studio and 500 different serving platters, an unlimited budget, and all the time in the world, you can still make wonderful things come out of your kitchen.