That’s me, on the left, the crazy-looking one. Cameras do that to me (that’s not the way I *really* look, right?). To the right is MA, my BFF, partner in cooking and partner in life.
This blog is for special recipes. After a meal when there’s silent reflection, and we look at each other and say, “Wow!”… Well, that’s a recipe you’ll find here.
Under the category Food for Thought, I pass along things I’ve learned, hoping they’re as useful for you as they have been for me.
Cooking is a creative outlet for me. It has its fair share of challenges. The simplest of challenges, for example, is that I rarely complete a recipe in the time given in the recipe. Chopped (TV series) material? I don’t think so.
I’m finicky, maybe like Morris the Cat, except I don’t much care for fish. People have said the list of things I don’t like is longer than the list of what I do like.
My approach is both technical (left-brain, think engineer) and creative (right-brain, think artsy and creative). I believe accuracy is important. Equally as important is tasting as you cook and adjusting for variations (due to ingredient quality, season, age, temperature, etc.). When baking bread, I believe that accurately measuring the ingredients is as important as the ingredients themselves. Though it’s easy to bake good bread (and cook good things, too) without using a scale, I find accurate measurement leads to more consistent results.
MA
My wife of 38+ years has kept our family fed. Great meals. Well fed. MA’s mom was quite the cookie and pastry baker and during her life had an eager following of family and friends.
We both favor organic food when practical. We are quite fortunate to have many local farms, here in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Northern California, that supply much of the produce to the coop where we shop. Plus, six months out of the year, there is a local farmers’ market on Saturdays.
We don’t use a lot of processed food. We use canned tomato products, mostly when tomatoes are out of season. We have two backup meals for those I-don’t-want-to-cook nights: Canned Chef Boyardee ravioli, and canned tomato soup and processed cheese slices for grilled cheese.
MA is so patient with me. Can you see it in her eyes, behind the sunglasses?
Disclosure
Products mentioned may link to Amazon and if you follow the link and make purchases I will get a commission. It’s an easy way for you to help me with expenses. I don’t accept gifts or compensation in exchange for citing a product. I discuss specific products when it’s something that I personally bought, and used, and felt it’s worthy of mention.