Start!

Food blogging is on the rise and with so many tasty creations coming out of our kitchen, I have decided to join the throngs of food bloggers worldwide by making my pictures, recipes and musings on food and related topics public through this blog.

Well, here is something my mother never thought she's hear me say - I love cooking! Better yet, I love cooking for other people. Yet, I don't feel that I can cook. True, I can follow a recipe to an edible final result but why did the result turn out to be edible and why does it taste well is still mostly a mystery to me. I am very much interested in figuring the underlying principles of what makes good food, learning basic techniques, flavor combinations, menu fundamentals. I will be writing a lot about my endeavors and explorations in this direction.

As frustrating as that may be for some, I don't follow recipes to the t. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, taste, continue. Unless it is bread or cake or souffle food is not that easy to screw up. Thus, I toss away the measuring cups and spoons and play with the proportions based on what is in the fridge and what tastes good. I very much recommend that you do the same.

Someone recently asked me about my cooking philosophy. I wasn't sure exactly what to say but the question made me think about it. In addition to the above, I guess my cooking philosophy is to make everything from scratch, to use fresh, raw, natural and simple ingredients as much as possible. You will find no cake mixes, artificial sweeteners and food coloring (red velvet cake is an exception), and very few jarred, canned and frozen things here. I am mostly vegetarian but I am not a sworn vegetarian and occasional carnivorous (as rare as that may be) entries may make appearance here. Please, don't get upset at me.

Alright. Turn on the oven and let the fun begin.