My Cooking Influences

Before I get started talking about some of my adventures with recipes, I thought I should let you know about the cooking in my life. My mom went through phases in my childhood. She baked homemade bread when I was young. I can still remember eating hot bread fresh from the oven. It had twisting pattern, like a snail shell, that I could uncurl and then enjoy. Later, when my mom was back in school, we seemed to live on frozen pizza and pasta prima vera and whatever other frozen foods could be cooked in 20 minutes or less, preferably in the microwave. But when she had the chance, my mom would experiment with new recipes. Sometimes we loved them, like a great homemade taco soup, sometimes we hated them, like a cold lentil salad. But we were expected to try all of them, and now, my favorite thing is to try something new.

My mom had lived in France for a semester, and my Dad lived in Germany for about two years, and both spent time in Turkey, after I was born. So we developed, as a family, a taste for the European. Fabulous cheeses, wonderful breads, amazing pastries, I learned to love them all. I went to France myself, only for two months, and came back loving French food. My mom bought me a French cookbook (an American edition of one I'd seen in France), and that was the start of my eclectic cookbook collection.

My husband comes from an All American family. His mother made good food, but she didn't love cooking. She made great Thanksgiving rolls, but she bought her pies. She'd make dinner, but never wanted kitchen stuff for a Christmas present. My husband was a good sport in the kitchen before we were married. He made brownies (from a mix) and had made a big dinner for friends on occasion, but he hadn't really embraced his talent for cooking . . . yet.

After we got married, we had to find some sort of middle ground. I like to try all sorts of outlandish things like quinoa and babaganoush and squash. I, also, don't like touching raw meat. Gross. My husband hates squash, it's a texture thing, isn't that fond of mushrooms, and only tolerates seafood, usually, for my sake. So when we got married, we embarked on a journey, one we didn't know we were going to take, to find food that we both like to eat. Sometimes we're successful, sometimes we're in tears, but it's been mostly fun, so far. We're looking forward to continuous food adventures, which will hopefully match a fire on in the oven while rolls are baking so that they taste so much like smoke they're inedible, even though they look perfect; polenta so bland that we both take a couple bites, look at each other, and throw the rest away; and all the other outrageously funny as well as miserably disappointing meals we've had. Though a lot of times things work out. They just aren't as memorable. That's why I have this blog, so we can remember our successes and share them. Enjoy!