I was asked at work the other day, what I like to cook.  It was strange, because other than my signature Spinach Artichoke Dip, I couldn’t really think of anything.  This is funny because there is so much.  It makes me think about how all of this happened.  While the pop culture of cooking that last 15 years has made ideas accessible to me, I am not a Food Network Foodie.  I am inspired in the wake of the memory of my father who died in 1996 at age 50.  He cooked like I do, like a mad scientist (as my wife calls me).  My sister Brooke who embraced cooking before I did inherited my Dad’s cookbooks.  Rightly so.  I had two recipes that I had perfected in 1986 when I was 20, almost 21.  These were the Mc Cormick black cooking bag for pork chops and the strange but tasty, upside down spice-dome cake that I made in Port Aransas, Texas.  I mention Port A because it is or rather WAS a different kind of place.  Smoking in grocery stores was fine and you did not need shirts or shoes in them either.  Mufflers on cars are optional too since vehicles rust VERY fast there.  I digress. 

The dome shape of the cake was because the closest thing I had to a cake pan was a stainless steel bowl.  So Brooke shared a love of more comprehensive cooking with my Dad, whereas I, shared music with him.  In the summer of 1996, as I was going through smaller items of my father’s I found an index card of a recipe that he cut off a package in October 1984 one night called “turkey stuffing bake.”  At 1 8years old I was surprised that I liked this since in 1984, my tastes really revolved around the fast food industry.  I also liked Shake and Bake for Pork, (as I suspect this may have been pureed and put in my baby bottles years ago).

In 1996 when I found this little yellowing index card, I immediately made the Turkey Stuffing Bake.  Not only did this bring back memories, but it opened a door I could not close.  There was something so sweet about making a meal.  Following a recipe at this point was sort of like mapping out a trip.  I loved to travel and cooking was like that. I played around with different recipes and most of the time in the early years my experimentation was restricted to grilling.

In 2000 during a 6 week medical leave from work, the final tumbler fell into the chamber.  By this point I had tried a good deal of food all over the country and even around the world and with the power of the Internet, I decided that I was going to enjoy these things in my own kitchen.  Since I was newly single, I had nothing to cook on.  So I went to the local 2nd hand store Sclafani’s and picked up a used set of Farberware from the 1970’s for next to nothing.  I began researching all kinds of recipes, especially Korean and Chinese and some basic french techniques.  These were awesome days.  I would go to the grocery store with something new in mind and that evening, it happened.

I knew then I was on to something and I pulled out all of the stops.  I would coast along on this Internet fed cooking discovery through 2005 when we got cable TV and found the well established Food Network.  Practical ideas from Rachel Ray, Alton Brown, Bobby Flay, George Stella and Juan Carlos fueled an already burning desire to create culinary experience.  All of this happening and yet I lacked technique.  In years to come I became acquainted with Rick Bayless, Alex Gaurnashelli, Jean Christophe Novelli, Cat Cora and many other greats.  These people inspired me and the more I cooked something began to happen, technique which is the beginning of self awareness and where your talent becomes living and breathing. 

To celebrate this coming of age, which I feel has only began I will post some photos of meals made during this time.