Hello World!

My first blog entry! Ta-Da! Fanfare ensues....

I was encouraged to start this as a food blog. I love food and everything about it. I like to eat, drink, create menus, throw parties with a bevy of dishes, create recipes, try new methods of cooking, anything. I am a self-professed kitchen gadget/appliance junkie. I watch cooking shows like one would watch a soap opera. I read cookbooks and cooking magazines like they are the latest Harry Potter novel (I read those too). I like to talk about food; how it tastes, what it feels like, how the texture is, what it pairs well with, where it comes from. I love to eat out and cook at home, but I prefer to cook and eat at home. Now, if only I could figure out how to get people who eat what I make at home to leave me a tip...

I love trying new foods and cuisines.  There are very, very few foods out there that I will not eat. Everyone has culinary likes and dislikes, and I love the challenge of finding that dish/menu/flavor that everyone goes ga-ga for. Or when someone will ask me what's in something I made, and when I tell them, they go "Really?? I don't care for (fill in ingredient here), but that was fantastic!"

I like to try duplicating and, in my opinion, improving recipes I see or read elsewhere. I also have the weird and strange ability to taste something once or twice (that I didn't cook) and rattle off the ingredients used in the dish. People have asked me to go to restaurants with them for the sole purpose of tasting their favorite dish just so that I can tell them what's in it and how to duplicate it.

Then I thought...what about other topics that I enjoy that aren't food or food related? My goal here is to keep the focus on food for the most part, but have the option and ability to toss in a post about other things that are important to me and maybe to anybody else that may be reading.

Hence the Five F's were "born".

1. Food - I can talk about that 24/7. I will post what's for dinner, snacks, restaurant reviews, cookbook reviews, just anything and everything about food.

2. Family - I have a fantastic (another F word!) one, if I do say so myself. I like to brag about them. My close friends are considered family, so I might brag about them too.

3. Fun - Who doesn't like to have fun? I hope to share some fun things we've done (or want to do) that you might like.

4. Familiarity - A very broad-based F word, but one I like. These are simply comfort topics (other than food, of course) that are near and dear and deserve to be brought up once in awhile.

5. Frustration - We all feel it in one form or another almost every single day of our lives. It helps to talk about it and see a different viewpoint...and find some answers along the way.

Let's see what happens, shall we?

Until the next F!