trustforce

I am a well trained amateur chef, and I have learned by taking some master classes and doing a lot of reading and experimentation. I revere Jacques Pepin, as a chef and a magnificent teacher (I still use La Technique and La Methode frequently and they are a great way to learn French cuisine). I don’t think one can become an excellent cook without the help of an extensive library of great cookbooks. I find that YouTube is a variable resource (some excellent stuff can be seen there), and PBS cooking shows can be a good place to learn as well). The food network TV started as a place where one could learn new recipes and techniques from real chefs, but it devolved into stupid food games. Commercial sites like the NY Times cooking and Serious Eats as well as some other food blogs provide new learning and expansion of my repertoire. I cook and enjoy many different cuisines. The fun is getting it right, with great taste and presentation. The smells and appearance add to the pleasure of eating well. I love making complex and fancy dishes for a great variety of different cultures, but I can get the same pleasure from eating simple dishes. For example, I enjoy any of the Chicago icons (a great Chicago style hot dog or an Italian beef sandwich, or Chicago style pizza) or some simple pleasures from New Orleans (po boy sandwiches, muffaletas, gumbo, etc). The United States has such a wonderful and diverse variety of local food for us to choose from due to the mix of ethnic influences and talented innovators. All my recipe postings are extensively tested by me unless I state otherwise. I will sometimes post a recipe that sounds like it should be good before I actually make it myself, but I will always come back and revise the "untested" recipe after I've made it, with valid comments to keep old posts accurate and current. If I am not the originator of a recipe I will always correctly attribute the source author, even if I have modified the recipe.