How I Got to this Point

I am a tomboy.  I always have been.  I never had any interest in anything domestic.  Had my child-brain had known the word oppressive, I probably would have used it.  A lot.  I wanted nothing to do with anything women did, if it wasn’t something men didn’t do on a regular basis as well. 

That includes cooking, cleaning, and sewing.  The cleaning came with time, a little maturity, and out of necessity.  The sewing will probably never come.

Cooking, on the other hand, did come.  It came late, but it did show up.  Three months shy of turning 34, I found myself with this itch to learn to cook.  And it was an itch I could not get rid of.

I set off on this adventure as I do with most all the unknowns in my life – on the computer.  I have to research everything.  I researched every imaginable cooking supply and instrument I could think of.  My research took me to products I had neve imagined existed.  I needed everything, as I had nothing.  Reviews, from professionals and consumers, were read, analyzed, and saved in a word document for cross-referencing later.  Lists were made of potential items for purchase.

I finally decided on what to buy, what was necessary now, what could come later, and what I would probably never need.  Those decisions have changed and grown over time.  I have realized that I did not need that item and that I definitely do need this one.  I also have found that the items on the never list are usually the ones that are needed the most.  Oh well, it’s all in the learning and growing.

I had this vision of tupperware from my childhood.  Luckily, ebay is an amazing resource.  I have found a lot of tupperware that is vintage, and I happily and regularly add to my collection as if I am that housewife in the late 70s and early 80s that I wanted so badly to be the antithesis of.

Next I needed to decide what and how I wanted to cook.  And why.  The purpose of cooking is to feed. 

Did I want to feed just myself? 

Did I want to feed my roommate and myself? 

Friends? 

The masses?

No, definitely not the masses.

I wanted to cook for my health.  I wanted to remain healthy. 

How do I do this, with my limited budget? 

There are ways.  Sales.  Coupons.  Shopping responsibly.  I have never bought into the myth that it costs too much to eat in a healthy way.  Now it was time to test my uneducated, untested theory.

I also wanted to learn to cook for occasions.  Dinner parties, potlucks, birthdays, and the like. 

Here the greatness of the times.  The computer is a vast and amazing resource for anything and everything.  I found recipes and more recipes, articles and more articles.  I also utilized facebook, soliciting my friends for their suggestions and recipes, as well as their knowledge.  I talked insistently to friends, family, friends’ parents, anyone who would listen.  The end result was a growing list of recipes, tips and tricks, and  more information than I could possibly have asked for.

Off I went.  This blog is to document my work.  In the ten short months I have been cooking, it has become one of my greatest joys, a source of therapy and pure obsession.  I do crave it. 

I have set up a pictures page where I will document my progress in photo format, sharing my food as well as the items I have purchased, and new ones as they come to me.  I also have set up a page just for recipes, where I will type them out in a format that is easy to copy and paste to print, without all the other blog-gy stuff in the middle.  The upcoming edibles page is a place for me to put in recipes I hope to conquer in the near future, and maybe entice you to come back and check out to see how they turn out.  But, really, it's just a spot for me to keep my goals in line.  If you see something on there you would like me to cook, please speak up.  Or, if you have made it, let me know how you did. 

I hope to blend two of my biggest passions here – writing and cooking. 

And show some progress.

First meal :)