By: James Justi
I have found enjoyment in learning about food, cooking, and most importantly eating since I was Young. We always had a small garden, and my grandfather had a much larger garden. Fresh ingredients were always close by. When I was growing up I remember my mother spending a lot of time in the kitchen. She made many great meals, and I learned a lot about cooking by just impatiently waiting for dinner to be done. Impatiently dipping bread in sauce, smelling things, or staring through the oven door.
When I look back at my life so far, many of the best memories I have is around a dinner table, in the kitchen, or sitting around the smoker for 12 hours with friends or family and a cooler of beer. One of the best feelings in the world is when you spend a day preparing food for a group of people and once dinner is started you hear nothing. The only noise in the room is the sound of chewing, with the occasional murmur of satisfaction. These are the meals that make me most proud of where I have come as a cook. They are not always the most labor intensive meals, sometimes just nailing the technique on a super basic recipe makes for the quietest room.
My quest to make my own food began as a necessity. Like many young adults I was dropped off at college at 18. With not a lot of skill in the kitchen, and the desire to keep eating the home cooked meals of my youth. A great example of how I got started is, I love my moms beef vegetable soup. The problem came when I called and asked for a recipe, she did not have one. She sent me on my way to the grocery store with a list of ingredients. I made my best attempt following the loose directions I was given. After many phone calls and tasting every step of the way, I eventually finished. The final product definitely wasn't exactly what she made, but it was close enough to bring back the memories of home. This really sparked my interest, my roommates enjoyed it and I got satisfaction from making something that people could enjoy. So learning to cook for me was never following a recipe, because they did not exist. It was done by trial and error. It was a way for me to develop my own style of cooking and my own techniques for making something taste a certain way. I have a few friends that work in the industry, so learning from them was a major factor in gaining knowledge as well. It is nice to be able to send someone a text and ask if they think these flavors will work together when you have a weird idea in your head.
The purpose of this blog is to share some adventures I have in the kitchen and to show people that cooking can be a fun and challenging experience. I will be sharing in depth recipes, techniques, product reviews, and stories. I can't wait to share some interesting recipes with everyone and hopefully inspire someone to try something new. I know even I fall into the trap of making the same dishes over and over again. So hopefully this blog will push me to come up with new ideas as well. I have a notebook of recipes that I have been working on and this will give me the space to share them with others and get their notes on possible improvements or changes.
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