About

Welcome to my blog.  I am an amateur cook who very much enjoys finding recipes that challenge me with new ingredients, tools, and skills. I get great pleasure in replicating something I ate in a restaurant, saw in a cookbook, or read about on the internet.  The process excites me as much as the final results!

Many chefs and writers have informed my cooking, the most important of course being my mother.  My real journey in the culinary arts came after attending Chef Jacob Burton’s boot camp. Favourite cookbooks come and go with the times, but the 5 volume Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold and The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg are always handy and provide great inspiration and ideas. As for favourtie on-line sites, these include Chef Steps, Great British Chefs, Serious Eats , and Helen Rennie (in particular, her instructional videos). Like many others I’m sure, during the Covid years I also explored the cocktail site, Difford’s Guide along with the excellent book Liquid Intelligence: The Art & Science of the Perfect Cocktail by Dave Arnold! I can’t recommend all these enough. Then why create yet another blog when there are so many excellent culinary sites?

As a family, we had a rule to always eat dinner together.  This was a time we could share our day and talk about what ever came to mind. Remember, these were the days before smart phones! After our children moved out, writing about cooking became a proxy for those family meals. It became a way of reliving some of our wonderful dinners at home as well as at the many wonderful restaurants we were fortunate to dine at on family vacations. Further, being curious, I enjoyed researching my menu and realized that just like when I was in school, writing down what I learned from my reading helped consolidate new material.

At first, I posted my musings on Facebook, but as it fell out of favour with many for a variety of reasons, I decided to create this blog in its stead.  While there may be little that is original to be found here, it has allowed me to continue sharing with both family and friends afar our mutual love of food.  I hope it resonates with you as well.