Welcome to the kitchen!

A little bit about how I landed in this place, and where we'll head on this adventure

Hello! Thanks for joining me on this culinary journey. Some of you might feel right at home in the kitchen, others of you might see boiling pasta as risky business. Either way, you're welcome in this place and it's a place for you. As long as you eat (which you must) and enjoy food (which you probably do), I think we'll have lots to delight over together.

So how did this endeavor come about? I've loved to cook and bake for a long time, and actually had a blog back in high school that featured a lot of food content. Over the years, I've tried many new recipes, learned a lot from mishaps and successes, fed a lot of people, and come to deeply appreciate the value of communing with others at the table and how food can bring us together in wonderful ways.

When the pandemic first hit a year ago, I thought that the complete halt of my regularly-held dinner parties, weekly meals at the homes of families I love, and big events where I'd help cook for the masses would be a detrimental loss of meaningful ways to connect with and serve others through food and hospitality. I soon found that although these have been grievous absences to bear, there was no shortage of other ways to share a love of food with others, albeit virtually or with COVID precautions in mind. In this unusual season, I've had more conversations with friends and strangers alike about cooking and eating than ever before, and have spent more time experimenting in the kitchen than ever before too. Eventually, I decided that it might be time to start up a blog again, not only as a way of providing a more permanent and readily-accessible food resource to others, but as a way of taking down notes for myself.

Here's what you might be able to expect, as we embark on this journey:

Recipes. For things that I return to time and time again, I'll be out writing my own recipes or adaptations of recipes to share. For other found recipes that I try out and enjoy, I'll be linking you to an original source along with some brief, hopefully helpful notes from my own experience of cooking it.

Tips and tricks. I'll be sharing helpful tips and thoughts for consideration when navigating the kitchen and day-to-day cooking.

Stories. In time, I'd like to explore the deeper significance of food and our complex relationship to it, individually and collectively. And I'd like to bring in the wisdom and expertise of others who know the food world better than I do.

Art. Since art, photography, and design are my actual profession, I have no doubt that there will be interesting intersections of food and art to be explored. Also, a part of why I'm starting this blog is the fact that I've taken so many photos of fresh bread this year that putting them somewhere feels like a way of justifying my madness.