the beginning.

my grandfather, Stanley, was a caterer. every time i went to his house up on 5th avenue, it never failed that i was in awe of his kitchen. it was self-contained. it was worn. it had an old radio, a magnetized strip on the wall to hold the knives, and a giant metal cold-cut slicer in the corner next to the fridge. i was in love.

however, i was also six, so i was usually told to stay out of the kitchen. sad day for little me.

when i got older, cooking and kitchens became one of my fascinations. i could think of no other artform as universal, long-lasting, all encompassing, and just... well, great. it was painting on the tongue.

prior to enrolling in college, i thought that my cooking would become my cash cow. i'd heard plenty of stories about how horrible college food was and i thought that my minor skills in the kitchen would help me make a profit. turns out that i went to a college with some of the best food among American campuses. go figure. but all was not lost -- instead, i found a community of people who not only loved to cook, but loved to eat. yeah, the food on campus was good, but variety was something that people constantly complained about.

so, sophomore year, i got a cookware set from Macy's and started seeing what i could make.

since then (i'm about to start my senior year), i've started believing that mantra from Ratatouille, anyone can cook, but it's more like... anyone can cook anything as long as they try. trust me, i never thought that i'd know how to make pancakes from scratch or tender barbecue ribs or okra gumbo, but somehow, these are all recipes that i trust. can i repeat them to you exactly? .... probably not successfully. but i'm learning that it's less about exact measures (in SOME cases... sometimes, a mis-measurement can be disastrous) and more about cooking with your tongue, brain, and heart. corny, yes. effective, yes. this will be where i talk out new recipes, record dinner parties i've hosted, and catalog all the do's, dont's, and new discoveries i make, and keep track of anything new i've made.

welcome to generation eat.