Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Hello and Welcome!

Where to begin? There are so many reasons I wanted to start this blog. It's been a seed of an idea for a long time, but a few things needed to happen in my life first. Namely moving to the capital of the universe, NYC.

I've been married for almost 4 years now, and I never would have called myself domestic even 5 years ago. Funny how things change. I started thinking of us as a family unit, even if it was just the two of us, and before long derived great pleasure from being able to feed us. Enjoying the food that fed us is even better and quite exciting. It seemed like magic when I actually got it right.

I started along this path of learning to cook in a very rudimentary and frustrating way:

"easy" cookbooks, which didn't provide enough explanation or guidance for a true novice
"budget" cookbooks which relied on ingredients laden with chemicals and, while cheap, terrible for you
"organic" cookbooks that were against anything remotely modern to help out flavor or technique

Because of all my pitfalls, I want to share what I've learned so far and demystify the process of preparing food. Something that should be common knowledge has become more complicated than it needs to be. My approach to food is simple and I always try to follow certain guidelines when creating a menu. Therefore you can expect the focus of this blog to be:

As economical as possible-but not annoyingly so
Health conscious- but not annoyingly so
Slight leaning towards Southern/savory cooking (have I mentioned I'm from Texas?)
Information on meal planning, using leftover ingredients, kitchen tools, etc.

I also want to be a voice for my specific generation, I'm 28 years old, so we are sort of caught between Gen X and Y, an odd place to be. Not exactly latch key kids but not inherently narcissistic either. I'm not sure how many of us are cooking out there, but it makes it less attractive when most cookbooks are written by and even directed at an older set. Not that I don't respect the wisdom of anyone older than me, I welcome it!

My attempt is also to make having some sort of domestic life cool and not hokey or something you should hide. A dichotomy in life is essential to balance, I feel. To illustrate my point, a good chunk of my time and career  is spent on my minimalist, avant-garde fashion blog where I search out the edgiest, most alternative designers and professionals in the industry. Anything clean, black and odd elicits a cerebral response that I cannot deny and must tell other like-minded people about.

 And when that is all said and done I like to make a hearty casserole or stew for my little "family" with the best possible ingredients. Then we eat the leftovers (and maybe freeze the rest) because it's the smart thing to do. I'm also annoyingly organized and make tons of lists so I meal-plan for the next week or more, being careful to carry over any leftover ingredients into the next night's dinner and so on. I hope I'm painting a clear picture here!

So this blog needs to be created for me to share what I have learned, my tactics for eating well on a budget, and document the continuing process of becoming a modern domestic.

Wont' you join me?