This is another picture I took at the Japanese Garden.

I didn't think I would be getting comments so soon after I started this blog. What I don't know about computers can fill three librarys, so I'm still learning my way around. I copied off alot of the information provided by Google, and go over it to learn new things about setting this up. I haven't learned how to process the comments so I will take this opportunity to thank all the people who sent in comments so far. I really appreciate it and I hope you come back to this site to see how it developes.

I went to chef school back in the early 80's because I found myself at the library all the time looking in cook books and copying recipes down in a little ledger at the time. I thought, "why not got go to chef school". So that is exactly what I did. So at the first opportunity I enrolled in a school that was in the town I lived in at that time. I didn't really want to cook for a living. I had been recently divorced and I wanted to learn how to cook. I wanted to learn because I like to eat good food. That's a good reason. Going to resturants all the time gets pretty expensive, and sometimes food in resturants is not all that good, especially if the cook is burnt out and so turns out a product that is under par. Another reason I wanted to know how to cook for myself was because I didn't want to have to depend on anyone else to cook for me. If I felt like having some certain dish, I wanted to be able to go in the kitchen and whip it out myself.

When I was little I would get in trouble sometimes. My mother would make me sit on a stool in the kitchen and wait for my father to get home. Usually this was around the time when my mother was cooking the evening meal. I would sit there and watch her cooking dinner. She would be adding something here and there to whatever she was cooking at the time. She did it with great skill. She knew what she was doing. I thought she was a great cook, and over the years she expanded her repitoire, and we rarely had the same thing twice in a two week period. she was always experimenting in the kitchen. I think we ate pretty good the whole time we were growing up. I do remember one time when there wasn't much food in the house. She had cheese and bread, so she made Welsh Rare Bit. I still love that dish to this day. Any way, back to the story. I used to watch her cook and it was amazing to me how she would come up with such fantastic meals. She never tried to teach me anything about cooking. I had 2 sisters and they didn't think a boy should need to learn how to cook. Actually back then I really had no desire to cook. I was more interested in eating back then.

So any way, after I was all grown up I remembered all the good things my mother used to cook, and I remembered her attitude toward cooking. I came to a point that I would love to learn how to cook those recipes that I loved so I went to chef school. The course was one year. I learned all I could and paid very close attention to what my instructors taught, and in the end I recieved a certificate for my efforts. I worked professionally as a cook three times. I enjoyed it each job very much, but it came to a point that this was not a job that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It was just more work then what I wanted to do. Now I am just content cooking for myself since I am a bachelor, and for friends and family when the occasion arises.

When I was married I used to fool around in the kitchen and try different recipes. I came up with a recipe for Corn Chowder. This is my version of that dish.

CORN CHOWDER

1/4 lb bacon

1 medium onion chopped

1 can of creamed corn

1 creamed corn can of milk

1 large tblsp of flour

4 or 5 boiled potatoes cooked in a separate pot, peeled & chopped

salt & pepper to taste

Method:

Fry the bacon in a frying pan until crispy and set aside

Pour most of the bacon grease out of the pan and reserve in the refrigerator

add chopped onions to the frying pan and cook til translucent

add the flour and stir around to make a roux

add the creamed corn & stir around

add the milk and blend with the corn

add the boiled potatoes

add salt & pepper to taste

crumble in the bacon and serve while still hot



I know there are many ways to make this dish, but this is the recipe that I developed when I was first learning to cook. I think the last time I made corn chowder I used chicken stock.

If anyone wants to share any of their favorite recipes with me. I would be glad to hear from you. This is about all for now..............so-long.