A Blog is Born!

I come from a family of cooks. My mother is a great home cook. My grandfather studied candymaking and made wonderful chocolates. And my father taught a gourmet foods class at the local community college for over 20 years - in addition to being the ultimate host at a dinner party. We had a dining room table (Dad built it himself) that seated 12 while we were a family of four. It was not uncommon to come home from church to see Dad had made a dozen cakes and was ready to give them all away! We were a family that loved cooking, loved eating and loved sharing the experience with others.

I caught the food bug in my twenties and went to culinary school. There I discovered my love for all things pastry - especially chocolate! I never quite settled into the culinary world professionally, though. I taught school for 4 years, and now I'm in the mortgage industry. Then a couple of years ago, while on a road trip, I mentioned my dream of teaching cooking classes in my home. Within a couple of minutes I had my first three customers, and a side career was born! I haven't quit my day job, but from time to time in the evenings I get to combine two of my greatest passions: cooking and teaching! (Or is it teaching and cooking? I'm just not sure which to put first!)

Students, it turns out, ask lots of questions about things I had always taken for granted. Things like "How do you know when it's done?" or "How much vanilla did you just put in that? How did you know how much to put in?" I quickly learned to smile and give them the same answer my father had always given me: "The Great Cooking Spirit will tell you!"

To date I've helped several dozen of them tune into the Great Cooking Spirit. Now I'm hoping you'll tune into my blog every now and again to see what kinds of projects the Great Cooking Spirit is helping me with...