Lardy Muppet in the Kitchen

I'm embarking on putting what I cook together in one of these easy-to-use websites. That way you (and I) will only need to remember one URL. 

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I am not a professional chef; I have no vocational training as a cook. I was taught a love of good food by my father and, like all of his children, I was taught to cook at an early age. It went way beyond the laudably pragmatic commitment to ensuring his kids were self-sufficient in being able to feed themselves appetising food. 

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We were all encouraged (actually "forced" might be more accurate) to grow food, following in his footsteps as he enthusiastically embraced the doctrine of subsistence farming that was so much a part of a particular era—so, no, hip kids, it's not really that new.

 

As with much else that he did, his enthusiasm and no shortage of skill was obvious; somewhat intimidating. As kids, we stood knee-deep in a cornucopia of organic carrots, spinach, tomatoes, butternut squash, green beans, lettuce, peppers and endless varieties of herbs, fruit and vegetables produced in such abundance that he barely had enough friends or family on whom to offload the surplus of beautiful, lovingly nurtured fresh organic produce. 

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In hindsight I respect lessons learned. I was admittedly a less than enthusiastic micro-farmer as a kid. For me, it was his passion for how cooking and travel intersect that retain a powerful personal resonance. I adored the journeys to distant lands with him and tales of the ones I never visited just as much. Better still, he could evoke both with dishes he had learned to cook during his attentive travels, always keen and able to encourage locals to teach him to cook authentic regional dishes, noting them down in journals I still cherish.

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From the scribbles in his numerous journals, he was always eager to retain what he learned on the other side of the world.  It was the beginning of an enduring passion, first as one of the diners eager to enjoy his delicious dishes and later as the son he taught to cook them. Building on the solid foundations he laid, I grew up with shared passions, sometimes following in his culinary footsteps, sometimes exploring territories of my own.

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As a young adult I scared my peers a little as I brusquely brushed aside the notion that cooking was a "chore" to be evenly shared within a group: I'd happily cook more often than anyone else if it meant that I didn't have to praise the bland attempts at cooking to which I was subjected as twenty-somethings tried to attain kitchen skills I learned at the age of eight or nine. Precocious, maybe. But who wants to eat dull food when you don't have to settle for the banal?

 

The rest, as they say, is history. I've found cuisines that I love and added these arrows to my quiver; travelled to places without my father, found new things there and soaked up the plethora of influences from around the world in various cities, both small and large. 

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Now I plan to share some of these dishes in one centralised place. More importantly, it's not just going to be about what I cook. I also plan to share tricks I've learned from friends whose home cooking I rate; co-created ping-pong recipes made with cooking buddies and, importantly, insight into paired wine and drinks from those I've learned to trust from my arrogantly confident position of high expectations. Okay, so this last one looks heavily to the expertise of my brother-in-law Karel. Like I say, I'm an amateur. He's a true oenologist.