Welcome to the carnivore and the vegetarian

Throughout my life I was privileged to eat my mom’s delicious home-cooked meals. I stood next to the counter as my mom prepared her famous brisket, filled a crock-pot with delicious stews or roll out her home-made pie crust, each dish cooked delicately and each tasted even better. While I didn’t usually help, I had a feeling that one day all that watching would pay off.

Around the time I went off to college, I knew the had come to learn how to cook for myself. My mom handed me some of her famous recipes for chicken cacciatore, the New York Time Cook Book, and told me to call if I needed help or advice. I probably can’t count the number of times I called from the aisle of the supermarket asking questions that now seem silly, like, “what’s the difference between chicken stock and chicken broth.” I suppose what they say about college being a time for experimentation is true — except in this case, it was for cooking food.

After college, I wouldn’t exactly say I was a skilled cook. I could follow a recipe and do basic techniques. When I first got my own apartment, it was time to really try new things and I messed up plenty. Making my mom’s beef stew, corned beef and cabbage or chicken cacciatore. I knew that I loved cooking, maybe not as a profession, but as something that was enjoyable to do myself. I came to not only enjoy that, but also to watch on tv and to try more accomplished chefs at restaurants.

This brings me to today. I read blogs, websites, watch tv shows, cooking contests, you name it. I have a list as long as this blog post of restaurants I want to try across the country. The beauty of the internet is that anyone can start up a blog, and while mine may just be another “try cooking this” or “I loved this restaurant” type blog, it’s something that I knew I had to do.

I hope you enjoy the recipes and pictures that will follow. My fiancee and I have vastly different tastes in food. I suppose that is obvious from the title of this blog. She is a vegetarian who eats scallops (yea, they look sorta like tofu) and I’m a carnivore who will eat anything (just about at least — you just might have to keep what it is a secret). This does make for some interesting nights in the kitchen, trying to find a way to cook a protein for each of us and the rest of the dish. Its fun, challenging and now with this blog, should keep me busy.