Monday 7 November 2011

A Few Words to Say Hello


                                                                                                              Thai Green Curry


            I love food and the act of cooking. This is the simplest and most concise way that I can put it. Like everyone else in the world I am sure my love for food comes from what I ate as a child. I was lucky enough to have a family that showed their love for one another through food and cooking, sitting down for dinner on Sundays and sharing a meal. This ritual has spurred on my love. I grew up in a less than well off family and through the sacrifice of my mother we always had good food on the table. So I say thank you mom. I started coming home from school to find recipe cards waiting for me on the kitchen counter at the age of 11. Simple recipes like spaghetti sauce, potato pancakes and the ever popular hamburger deluxe casserole. It is from these recipes that my passion for cooking began.
            Like most 11 year olds I would get bored quickly so I began to raid the spice cupboard. I like to believe that if you go into any home you will find one of these cupboards, stuffed with all manners of dried herbs and spices that were bought for single use. From here I began to play adding flavours, some actually succeeding, and I was hooked. As I grew up I found that I loved to be in the kitchen. I found it to be a place that I felt safe, for a hormonal fat kid safety was bliss. I was cooking and experimenting to please my tastes, sometimes to the wide eyes and forced swallowing of my mom. Ever supportive, she would force the food down and we would chat about what was good and what needed work in the dish. So again I say thank you mom. 
            If my mother was the one that allowed experimentation in our little kitchen it was her mom who taught me about the importance of tradition and the true purpose of cooking: Feed the body, feed the heart. Cooking was about sharing. There is nothing better in my mind than sitting down and sharing a meal. Well there are a couple of things but this is about food. I remember sitting at the kitchen table and watching my grandmother (Grand) chop vegetables, marveling at how precise she was. I was even more impressed on the holidays when she would be up at the crack of dawn getting everything ready for the meal, cook all day, and do all of this work with a smile on her face because she knew that when we sat down to eat she would make us happy. You will find some of her recipes around this blog and there are some that you won’t because they are ours. Sorry about that but every family has their secret recipes.
            I have been graced in my life with some great friends. You will find some of them in these writings. Some have been formally trained, others are great home cooks and others are just food dorks like me. We try to get together once or twice a month for what we call family dinner. We cook what has peaked our interest, meals ranging from Asian food right down to comfort food that my Grand used to make and normally drink a little too much. It is from these dinners that the idea for this little project has spawned. Why not try to start something that appealed to not only cooks but eaters too. So here we go. In these writings and hopefully the ones which follow it my friends and I will take on some food writing. There will be recipes for sure but there will also be some stuff on beer, wine, and spirits, finding the perfect recipe for.... whatever, and maybe even some stuff about eating out in our town. This is not an industry thing this is for those of us in the world who simple love food and cooking. I hope you find something you like.

1 comment:

  1. Nice start to the blog, keep up the good work!

    For any readers who haven't experienced the chili yet, definitely give it a try (with caution!) This recipe gets hot in a hurry and stays that way, lots of milk and for the love of all things good do not stick it in the fridge! (GT)

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