Here's where it all started. My first cookbook. I remember when I got it and how much I LOVED it. I was hooked. I could sit and look through the pages for hours imagining the tastes and textures that had so far only been possible in my imagination. I still have it - every page familiar. I can still read cookbooks for hours. They are my favorite souvenir no matter where I travel.
This book has travelled with me from one coast to the other and has generally been with me despite my address or if it ever would be looked at again. These books are like my culinary security blanket. When I wonder if things will work out and I feel stressed, I see them and know that I have clear, trusted directions close at hand - and it's just that simple.
I couldn't have been more than four or five when I got it. I used to watch The Galloping Gourmet on television at lunchtime followed by Julia Child of course. I suppose Kimba the White Lion was on, before both, but I was secretly simply waiting to watch someone cook who knew what he or she was doing.
Ever since, cooking, baking, canning and preserving has been a compulsory part of who I am. I cook when I feel as though I can't think clearly. I cook when I need to stop and just think.
I've spent hours assembling and breaking down recipes to achieve the best result possible - the textures, tastes and sentiment I'm looking for. Whether that means altering ratios, adding, changing or removing ingredients or something as small as changing the brand of a product. The differences in result can range between vast and subtle. Possibilities are virtually endless. This blog will serve as my online log book of those trials, experiments and successes - failures included.