Cooking

I don't know about you, but I like cooking. I like the process of imagining the flavor, using and playing with a recipe, tasting along the way and then presenting a final product, it builds layers of anticipation towards the meal and the enjoyment of sharing your creation with others. The primary downsides of cooking are the time spent and the planning required.

I don't remember that first thing I cooked, but I remember it was long ago. My mom, pretty early on, decided that her two sons would not be entering the world not knowing how to cook. So, for a while, my brother and I would take turns preparing one of the family meals. We got assistance where needed, of course. We would flip through a few cook books a few days before, so my Mom could pick up the stuff at the store. It was fun.

Recently, though, my cooking has been held to pretty simple things and grilling. There is nothing wrong with this, but I don't get the same enjoyment adding a little color to some hotdogs and cooking some frozen French fries.

Two weeks ago my boss had all of the leaders under her go to a cooking school, where we participated in a duel. The team was divided in half and we cooked the same recipes, with our own tweaking to be presented to a judge and a winner was declared. It was a blast. It also fired that desire to cook up in me. I came home, told my wife and told here I wouldn't mind doing the cooking all the time. She looked at me like I was crazy, perhaps a look of experience, and said deal.

Well, tomorrow is day one, and so far the hardest part is deciding on the menu and coming up with a shopping list. I've downloaded an app to help called Meal Planner, which allows you to import from pretty much all the major recipe sites, but you have to decide on what you want. It is hard to choose what is good and what everyone is going to like. Fun, but hard.

So, if any of you know of some great recipes you think the Smith's should try, let me know.

For my wife and her friends, I will not be joining Pinterest to pick up the recipes you find there.