First Post - I don't have a clue....yet

My very first blog. Where do I start? I'm the Chef's mom and I love to cook. I love everything about cooking, except one thing. I love going grocery shopping, I buy just about every cooking magazine published, I have an extensive library of cookbooks and own lots of cooking tools. The one thing I don't love is cleaning up my mess. I'm sure that I am not alone. Chef Boy doesn't like to clean up either. Today I stepped on a little piece of tomato that fell on the kitchen floor and skidded halfway across the room. Chef Boy is my 21 year-old son and he is a trained chef. Lucky kid. If I had it to do over, I would be one too.

I didn't cook until after I got married at 20 years old. Once I had my little apartment kitchen, I kind of went nuts and cooked all the time. I learned how to make a mean Swiss Steak. I also learned some important lessons, like never, ever store Bounce dryer sheets in the same drawer as your pasta. Especially when you're pregnant and have morning sickness.

Poor Chef Boy grew up watching the Food Network, so I really think his career choice was pre-destined in utero. He's a big fan of Bobby Flay and Jamie Oliver, while I'm partial to Ina Garten and Nigella Lawson. There are a couple of tv chefs that neither one of us can stand to watch, but I won't name them, because it feels kind of mean.

In the upcoming days, I will share some of my favorite recipes, my favorite restaurants in the Sacramento, CA area where we live, and some of the recent disagreements between Chef Boy and me. He has the training and the technique while I have the years of experience. He works in a really wonderful demonstration dinner restaurant and I cook in a small kitchen in my home. Works for me.

Also, we have a gorgeous, silly chocolate standard poodle named Rocco. He has a discriminating palate (except he LOVES canned cat food and apparently his own rear end), and on occasion I'll ask for his opinion of my cooking. I will let you know what he likes and doesn't like. We also have a kitten, Trixie, who was born cross-eyed and without eyelids. She eats flies, so I won't be asking her opinion.