About the Scribbler
I love to cook & use food to express creativity, love & friendship. I’m constantly scribbling notes in the margins of my cookbooks & in my food journals. (I’m addicted to buying cool journals to use as a kind of low-tech ‘blackberry’ to keep me organized.)
If I’m making dinner for two, having friends over, or about to discover a favorite dish that I want to repeat or share with others, I write it down. The notes I scribble in the margins of recipes help me to remember things like what I changed about it, the occasion and who was there. The fun of cooking—unlike baking (not that baking isn’t fun too!), is that it’s kind of like jazz—you can improvise, sometimes coming up with something even better. I’m sipping a glass of wine and enjoying myself, lost in the process of creating. I’m a late bloomer. Eventually it occurs to me that (long after everyone else has started food-blogging!) this is like a blog, except I keep it to myself. Maybe I should put it out there into the blogosphere where there is already a ton of thoughtful, witty, well-written and informative foodblogs”. (I’ve spent lots of time reading ‘em too!) Hopefully there’s room for one more….I’ll have fun connecting with you, dear fellow-foodie, while I secretly dream of being ‘discovered!’
I’m simply a collector of cookbooks
& good recipes that work…..
I’m a self-taught cook, a ‘middle-aged’ stove. (I aspire to be an ‘old stove’.) My husband Tim calls me “The Research Queen”. There are lots of recipes I make time and again because I know they won’t let me down. I often adapt them to suit myself. I still enjoy reading & trying new ones too. As I get older the challenge is not to lose the sense of spontaneity I had about food when I was younger. (I admit some of it is better left in the past—college, velveeta, need I say more?!) Scanning the New York Times, the local Virginian Pilot, food-stained cookbooks, memoirs, my favorite food-mag Saveur, (since 1994!) I consume foodie-info constantly. Inspiration is everywhere. I come from a large extended family of awesome cooks (mostly Italian, some Polish & German), who’ve inspired me.
They’ve been my mentors, along with some well-respected chefs, cooks and writers I admire. The experience of years has taught me, simply by doing. I don’t get many complaints - so maybe what I know (and have yet to discover!) is worth passing on! This is the kind of stuff I want to share - what inspires the foodie in me & hopefully, you. What I also hope, as I struggle to ‘find my voice’ (help me, Natalie!), is that you’ll hang in there with me as I try to convey to the virtual page what I’d like to have - a conversation in the kitchen between friends. So—welcome & thank you—I hope you’ll return often!
Stir that Risotto!
Cook: Chris Solanic
Hubby/Recipe Tester: Tim
Angelic Companion in a black cat-suit: Zoe
