I am sitting here writing this after dinner with a glass of wine.
The mid-week menu is as follows:
Boiled smoked pork shoulder
Baby peas with butter and scallions
Parmesan mashed potatoes with bread crumbs
It was a great and simple meal.
The boiled ham is a typical Czech preparation. You take the cheap cut (in this case the whole cut which could feed about 8 people was about $5) boil it in water and serve it with a German mustard and freshly grated horseradish. Yum.
It all started a long time ago.
When I was five my job was to prepare the crumble for my mother's pies. I remember sitting on the ground with a bowl between my legs my clumsy fingers mushing the buttery mixture.
It was the beginning of my culinary education.
I never attended the CIA or the Cordon Bleu...but I learned how to make a perfect pork roast from my Czech grandmother, the perfect pasta sauce from the Tuscan mother of a former boyfriend and French cuisine basics from my father.
My parents opened a restaurant when I was 12. I had to pinch hit as a waitress, cook, sous chef ... whatever was needed.
Later in life I worked as a bartender and waitress while studying for what was to become my profession: journalism.
So here I am.
I cook to relax. I cook when I need to think. I cook to feed my family.
I'm starting this blog to share my opinions, recipes and anecdotes. Food + journalism = blog.
It's going to be a fun trip. I hope you'll travel down the road with me.
