HOME – It took quite a while to bounce back from my recent failed attempt at a food blog. It was like baking your first souffle, taking it out of the oven and watching that glorious gold & white cloud poof into a puddle. My first love, Cooking from the Hip (.com), ended abruptly after I discovered Cat Cora (Iron Chef) wrote a cookbook in 2007 by the same name with the same idea- cooking new dishes with seasonal produce and a well-stocked pantry by the seat of your pants. {Sigh} She carries a large cleaver, so I moved on.

A funny thing happened while building that original blogdom: I started paying attention. My internal rebellion against rules and the tedium of documentation (forbid I had to create the same dish twice) meant I had an excruciating time following a recipe- even my own. But, in order to write about the process of off-the-cuff cooking, I had to document it. My meals began to improve. My husband started actually complementing my dinners. Saying with a tinge of disbelief or relief or both, “This is really good.” By analyzing my written recipes, I had simplified my flavor profiles, reducing palette confusion. Seriously on that one. Before the blog, I was so experimental in my cooking, that although I was progressing toward the perfect dish, I was rarely capturing it. Throwing in the extra spice on a whim doesn’t always improve the whole. Tedium is my new best friend.

Life always unfolds as it should and I’ve grown rather fond of my new space. I hope you will, too. The idea behind the Paper Apron is revolutionary. Yeah, that would be nice. It’s actually the same reason 180,000 other home cooks are out there blogging about food at this very minute. We all love to cook, read about food, talk about food, write about food, dream up new dishes and eat. Food is so pleasurable. And, as an interface designer, nothing is more mesmeric than a playground where I can design for my own amusement.

Blogs offer us freedom and a strange sense of power; they’re our very own virtual empire. I encourage you to try it, to rule the world from the privacy of your own home.

So this is the Paper Apron deal: we’ll cook some; we’ll burn some; we’ll learn some; we’ll eat well.

And now, for my very first Paper Apron recipe. “Look Mom, I’m writing it down!,” I type, beaming with pride…



Posted on August 17th, 2008 under Issue no. 1 • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed