I’d like to say that I enjoy baking, but it’s not really my speciality. A little too precise orderly for me. You actually have to take exact measurements of flour, sugar, eggs, salt, baking soda, and vanilla & if you’re off by even a teaspoon, the entire recipe can fall apart. Cooking, on the other hand, I love. I think it’s because I’ve never really followed a recipe when I cook. I love to add my own spices and concoctions to meats, fish, vegetables, and stews. I taste as I go (which can be a problem because i’m usually full by the time I sit down to eat), but I love inventing my own recipes and altering others. A pinch of this and splash of that and viola, you’ve got the perfect meal. I actually took a month long culinary course in NYC one summer and fell in love with the creative process of cooking. Each day, we’d work with a different type of food…one day we’d work with eggs and another day we’d switch to figs. I learned that cooking (like jewelry design) has no rules or boudaries. My mother is the sort of person that travels to other countries with a separate suitcase and fills the suitcase up with exotic spices and salts. She’ll come home with a variety of fabulous dried herbs, curries, and cultural delicacies to be used for rubs on fish and magic flavors to be brought out in dishes. Many months ago, I started my own recipe book. Everytime I cook something new, I’ll write down the recipe and take a photo of the food and the company we shared during the meal. In a way, it’s a sort of like a cooking journal…a photo album and personal journey in the kitchen.
