This.. is My So-Called Knife.
Welcome to my blog about food, the nature of food, local food in the mid-Atlantic, growing food, eating food, loving food, planning and organizing food, and also food. There will be some other topics I touch on from time to time, things that come into my life that I feel are worth sharing. Food and diet will pretty much always be primary, and I will gladly be sharing many recipes on this blog – though I will warn you ahead of time that I am not really much of a recipe person. Which is to say, I look at recipes as a good place to start but feel that if everything you cook has already been cooked before a million times over.. where’s the fun in that?
I also really love to read about food, so in addition to cataloging my various food adventures and misadventures, I will be peppering the site with book reviews and suggestions from time to time. I have read some really great books in the past couple years and they are generally my prime source of inspiration when it comes to kitchen creativity.
You should know that I am, even at best estimation, nothing more than an amateur in the kitchen. I have no formal training, I have never worked a line in a restaurant (and hope to keep it that way), and I cook only for myself, my wife, and whatever friends or family may happen to be around at the time. Nevertheless I have a sincere interest (I suppose you could call it passion, if you want to be romantic about it) in all things gastronomical. I value good food, produced in a clean manner, that has come to my table in a means that is fair to all who have been involved. I strive (struggle) to eat and drink as locally as possible, and to rotate the ingredients in my kitchen as the seasons rotate around me. I like to consider myself a co-producer in my food chain, intimately linked and therefore more responsible for the food in my kitchen and in my family’s collective belly. As a consumer, I affect this chain with my purchases (or non-purchases). This, of course, is a process. And not an easy one. I am no perfectionist, but to me every step – however small – has its impact. Like any diet one can undertake, you will be bound for failure if you do not allow yourself exceptions and cheats. Right now, frankly, I am really only beginning this effort.
It is my hope that as I document conquests and disasters for all my readers, somewhere in there they will find some motivation to go off on their own charge and do something new with their food. Try a new ingredient, grow a new herb, go for that extra 3rd scoop of ice cream.. whatever it may be. Food is not about work, food is pleasure. Love it.
