I’ve done it now. Gotten myself in too deep and forgotten a step- now it’s too late! Will my guests realize the cream cheese is store-bought? Should I feign illness and beg-off when it’s really that I’m ashamed of serving something that is not homemade, even if it’s only a condiment?

A few days ago I read this article and it made me think long and hard about my approach to holiday cooking.

In life I’m spontaneous and a little loco.

In the kitchen, I’m type AAAAAA.

Sure, I can cook off the cuff, often tossing three random ingredients together to make an accidental masterpiece (or failure), but for the most part I plan. I am a firm believer in mise en place. I study. I approach food anthropologically and draft heat maps based on predilections for certain spices. I generally don’t cook from recipes, so planning and research are essential in order to understand the fundamentals and science behind what makes things work.

I realize this makes me part of the 1% (please don’t occupy my kitchen though- I’ll serve you excellent wine if you just stay the eff in the living room), but you know what? I’m ok with that when it comes to cooking. It’s my craft. Everyone should be allowed to be a geek about something, and food is my chosen medium. You know what you can call me without me going all Pulp Fiction on your ass like many of my peers? A Foodie. Read more

sourdough crumb

*Update: If you’re up for participating in doughvember and you’re on twitter, tweet me and I’ll add you to the twitter list @saltyseattle/doughvember. You can follow along with other participants there as well as via hashtag #doughvember.

No blog is ever truly a food blog, is it? Sometimes life gets in the way and you have to share a little of your current situation- even if it’s really embarrassing- along with your recipe for Beef Wellington.

I have a big month planned. I’m headed to Santa Monica to speak at IFBC (you should come!) and to visit family and friends in the LA area. I’m also putting the finishing touches on a book proposal. I’ve upped my freelance writing work and have deadlines looming. Then there’s Thanksgiving and the promise I made to singlehandedly cook for 20+ people. Despite a jam-packed month, I also wanted to include a fun little project my beautiful co-host Nicole from Pinch My Salt and I are calling “Doughvember”. It’s a whole month dedicated to raising awareness about sourdough with the end goal being that those of us who participate will become better sourdough bakers. If you live in the US, imagine how good your rolls will be come Thanksgiving? Read more

oh lookie at me cookie

Pim Techamuanvivit of the blog Chez Pim made a resonant point on her facebook page recently. She said:

“It annoys me every time I hear someone say “I’m a self-taught cook/chef/whatever”. There is no such thing. You learn from SOMEONE, via books or eating or other experiences. Be grateful to those who came before you and acknowledge that lineage.”

Often I hear that cooks, food-lovers, even food-writers are “self-taught”. In fact, I am guilty of claiming autodidacticism in my own culinary trajectory. I have come to realize that it is important to acknowledge what made me who I am so that I can build a better future-me. This is the age-old dilemma with history repeating itself. If we don’t look back and appreciate what made us learn, leap and fail, we’ll never succeed to our fullest.

Here are some of my decisive kitchen moments in the early years.

with mom and dad

It starts with one story that some of you have heard before. It involves me, my best friend Slobber, and his untimely demise. As you may know, when I was little, my father moved our biracial family to an extremely small town in Idaho from the suburb of LA, California where we had been living. My dad is white, but my mom and her two children from a previous marriage are black. I am not adopted, in case you were wondering, I just happened to get most of my dad’s coloring. I like to think that I inherited nice lips and supple nipples from my mom’s side, but that’s about it. Read more