(poem) - Wearing Black while Baking Bread

Is there anything better
Than wearing black
And being covered by flour?

Cooking is so much fun
Baking is as well
Watching bread rise, hour after hour.

Mix everything together
Add the right about of spice
And suddenly an amazing flavor comes together

I never realized
It could be so much fun
Cooking in the kitchen with her

My wife and I
Make a great team
Doing everything together, time after time

When it comes down to creating
We make the best of teams
As we write a story, line after line

But together in the kitchen
Kneading out the dough
We make the most amazing things

With flavors so astounding
We are reminded
Of why we gave each other rings

Food nourishes the body
Enhances life itself
Especially with the right flavors

Our love nourishes our soul
Mix in the spices of our life
And our marriage resonates with a purr

So, in the end
Cooking food together
Sums up our love

Add just the right mixture
Makes all the flavors of life
Soar so high above.

--Dan

--Want more Poetry?  Check out my Poetry Collection Page!

Cooking: Japanese Hibachi Style Fried Rice

I’ve been threatening to write this blog post for awhile, and I think, its finally time....  Japanese Hibachi Style Fried Rice!

One thing to note, before I get started on this, is that when we cook in this house, I make sure there are plenty of leftovers.  That being said, when I cook my Fried Rice, we make quite a bit.  Another thing to note is that I always find my recipes online and modify them to suit my needs.  I’ll post them in a footnote kinda thing in the bottom.

Spices are the Flavor of Life

I honestly can’t imagine a world with spices.  Known now, in the internet cute cat world, as ‘flavors’ food is pretty crappy without them.  Its amazing how for granted we take spices now, considering entire empires rose and fell because of the spice trade.

Spices go way back in human history, and have become such an integral part of every day life.  They are even mentioned a few times in the Bible, of all books.  Oddly though, I think of all the fantasy stories I’ve read, and they don’t really get too much into spices....  A shame.  Fantasy and Sci/Fi have really drawn a new connotation for the word ‘spice.’  In Star Wars and Dune ‘spice is a form of drug.

The Great Pizza Experiment

The first time I ever tried a homemade pizza, at least the first one I remember, wasn’t that good.  I don’t remember much about it, just that it was pretty awful.  From then on, as I kept seeing how cheap pizzas were, I never understood why someone would go through the trouble to make one at home when they were so cheap.

But then came the Indian Commodities, and tons of flour.  And I mean OMG amounts of flour.  Making my own bread was the first obvious step.  And wow, what a step.  Making bread was far simpler than I had imagined, and there are billions of different recipes online.  After finding out which exact recipe I loved, and what made the other recipes not so good, I wondered what I’d make next.

A Spicetarian Diet.

Okay, I know I’m a picky eater.  I’ve gotten it all my life, but what DO you call it when a person doesn’t like the taste of meat or vegetables?  I mean, besides a crazy person?

I personally call myself, jokingly, a spicetarian.  I love spices, they make things edible.  In the end, I’m gonna list some stuff, and don’t go, “EWWWW!” before you give them a try.  You never know how good something might be before you try it.

What To Blog About

Dan has wanted me to blog for some time but just what would I blog about? He told me I should blog about vampires. There is so much I could blog about vampires but since I write about them all the time I thought I would write about something else. But just what would I write about?

I thought about this for days, finally I thought about writing about cooking. Yes I know there are many blogs out there about cooking but you see, I love the movie Julie & Julia , but I don’t cook much. Dan does most of the cooking, I’m amazed at what he can do with spices, and how he cooks with wine. I do help him make dinner and lunch but I have really no cooking skills.

I started looking on Pinterest and cookbooks online for recipes that my family would like. Dan is a VERY picky eater (no veggies, he hates the taste of meat, he calls himself a ‘spicetarian’ but I have no clue what to call a diet like that) and a teenager that can eat me out of house and home. Dan swears she’s about to hit a growth spurt with the amount she’s currently consuming.