I’m Kim. I’ve been in and around the kitchen as long as I can remember. Growing up, my family didn’t eat in the dining room. We ate at a bar on the far end of the kitchen. So that was the gathering place every night: where we shared the stories of our days, some laughs, and where my brother and I would trade insults. It was a warm place to be.
Those days shaped my food-view: good food should be accessible. It can be simple. And the experience should be shared.
Realizing in grade school that the easiest way to get my favorite snacks was to learn to make them myself, I watched my family cook, taking quick mental notes of basic technique to build my initial how-to library.
I quickly developed a simple yet stable arsenal, featuring peanut butter and jelly toast (still a warm embrace of a snack, paired with a cold glass of milk) and peanut butter filled apple slices. As a latch-key kid alone in the house after school, my parents would come home from work to a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies.
I was always game to break out the pots and pans to whip myself up a simple meal, and discovered that cooking for others was even more enjoyable.
Living solo for the first time in 2000, Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything was the blueprint to elevate my interest into an actual hobby. I was suddenly using fresh tarragon and thinking I was kind of a big deal. Cooking for one, I enjoyed the experimentation: it was cheap, I couldn’t poison any friends or loved ones, and if a dish ended up tasting like garbage, I could get a fried half-chicken at the Chinese restaurant around the corner for a couple of bucks. No worries.
I’ve enrolled in recreational cooking classes, looked to extend my library of technique, sought new ingredients and creative uses for common ones.
This is the space to work on a craft I thoroughly enjoy. It’s a method to stay motivated to eat less processed crap (as delicious as it may be), and to provide kick-ass tastiness to my wife and twin sons. It’s a forum to share experiences with anyone that cares to read along, to work on my writing, collaborate with my talented wife, and expand my repertoire.
Please. Enjoy.