For my first blog post I thought it would be a good idea to explain why I enjoy cooking. I've found this much harder than I would've thought, but I guess what it comes down to is that when you provide someone with a meal, you aren't just giving someone food to eat, you're giving them part of yourself. I know it sounds a bit corny and cliche, but at its core a meal is about life.Whether you're feeding friends, family or complete strangers, at a visceral level giving someone food is making an active decision to ignore the small voice which exists in us all as a product of evolution that says "me first". I guess for the most part, that's why I cook. Really though there's more to it than that. There's a peace I feel in the preparation of ingredients for a meal, a rush I feel when there are lots of things on the go all needing to come out at the same time. More than that, there's no better feeling than knowing you've put genuine effort into something as basic and fundamental as food. It's the one gift you can give someone which they can never return (at least not in it's original form), and regardless of how careful you are with your measurements, ingredients and timing, every meal you ever make will be unique not just in its taste, but in how it is received by the person who is eating it. You can never fully anticipate the culmination of feelings, memories and emotions that will interact with the taste of a dish to bring about a final outcome.
So, that's my first blog post. My wonderful wife has put on one of my favorite movies (Midnight in Paris), and she's finishing off a meal from the recipe book I bought her for Christmas. I can't imagine any reason to sit here banging away at keys instead of enjoying the food, wine and company that I hope to spend some time writing about. As a preview of things to come, have you ever wanted to make the perfect omelette? Yes, perfect is a big word to throw around, but that doesn't mean I can't try.
