I love the kitchen.  I love everything about it–the smells, the tools, the way everyone seems to gather there…  But I’m definitely not a gourmet chef.  I won’t pretend that I’m completely original or that this blog will change your life, but I will say that hopefully I can inspire you to try something new, and you can most definitely learn from my mistakes.

I used to be scared of cooking.  Baking was so much safer–all you had to do was follow the recipe, set the oven at precisely the right temperature, and then pull it out when the timer beeped.  Cooking was a much stranger beast.  I mean, there were so many variables!  Spices, methods, cooking times!  You could cook on a barbecue, you could broil it, you could pan fry, sear, saute.  You could add 1 tbsp of dried basil or you could cut up fresh basil leaves.  You could add red pepper, which also happened to be called cayenne, etc, etc, etc!  I always felt overwhelmed, and I never really got a lot of direction from anyone.  My mother’s favorite phrase was “till it looks right,” and my husband thinks that timers are for sissies.  My room-mate even banned me from the kitchen for awhile when I was trying to teach myself to cook.  (The final straw, I think, was the third pot of burnt rice accompanied by charcoal briquettes that had started out as pork.  He told me I could bake to my heart’s content, but other than that, leave well enough alone)

The point to all my rambling, if there is a point, is this:  If I can do it, you can do it! There is no right or wrong, there are simply tastes.  Sometimes you have to eat your mistakes, but they’ll work out better the next time, because you’ll have learned what not to do.  Be brave, have conviction, and together, we’ll learn to cook.