Sunday, February 26, 2012

Cynthia, my name is...

EEEEEE! That was me being exhuberant at joining this most awesome group! I am a nerd and a geek, and I love food oh-so-much, so I was very excited to be asked to join, and hope to honor my fellow baristas and this awesome-possum blog with my posts!

Now on to my culinary life snapshot!

Top culinary influences: Personally speaking, my father, my mother, and my French grandmother. I remember being so small and sitting at the table in my father's home and seeing him skewer marinated meat for souflaki, or sitting in my grandmother's home and smelling that pate au pattes de cochons that took a total of 36 hours to complete, and would be devoured in a couple of hours by my family on Christmas. I learned a love of food that took time to prepare at their knees and kitchen tables, and still today I add certain spices or prepare meat a certain way because of them.
She's pretty badass.
So is he.

Favorite cook books: Honestly, I don't refer to cookbooks alot. Its very rare that I follow a recipe (even though Im sure my husband wishes I would sometimes), and I look through cookbooks for pictures and adapt that picture to what I have. I think that the most honest answer to this would be to refer you to allrecipes.com, where I can input certain ingredients and see what other users have come up with. The whole interwebz iz ma cookbook, yall!

Favorite 5 ingredients: ONLY FIVE?? Right now, it would be olive oil, garlic, oregano, chicken, lemons. And honey. And molasses. And brown rice. And apples. Ok Ill stop now.

Favorite 5 dishes: Macaronia with canella and lamb, loukoumades (does this count?), pate au pattes de cochons, slow cooked beef stew,

How did you learn to cook?: First, its in my blood. That's just how Greeks do. Second, I learned everything I know (and still learning) from my family. My Greek side taught me to like delicious Mediterrenean flavors, to feel joy when you smell a freshly squeezed lemon, and to put tzatziki on basically everything. My Quebecois side taught me to enjoy the simple dishes that take long hours to cook, and the pleasure of assembling around a dinner table without silly TV's and phones and other distractions, and just enjoy the food and enjoy each other. Which is, in my belief, every bit as important as preparing and cooking the food.

Your week in cooking: .Well let's see, I had two days off thanks to eating at my mother's (every Sunday night), and eating at Jeff's mother's (SCORE LEFTOVERS). I made sausage and shrimp Cajun jambalaya, roasted corn soup, pita pizzas, chicken fajitas, and lemon garlic herb crusted salmon.

Culinary fascination of the moment: Canning anything and everything. Ive been canning and preserving for a couple of years (by myself, with my grandmother, since I was 6). Its a pleasure that I just cant seem to get enough. I LOVE LOVE LOVE TO CAN!

Culinary ambitions: I have two culinary ambitions, one is personal, and the other professional. My personal ambition is to be able to feed my future (hopefully, quite large) family real food made as much as possible with my own two hands, organic and wholesome, to teach them the sacredness of sharing a meal together, and to love food for everything it is and everything it could be. My professional ambition is still to be discovered, but I know it lurks there. I have a (very) small business selling organic preserves which is called NomNom Goodies (yes, I just shamelessly self promoted, check it out on Facebook.), and I love it. But we'll see what God has in store for me!

Your dream kitchen: Laaaaarge, with TONS of storage space, and with windows brightly illuminating this airy space with natural light. Country feel, with wood everywhere. A gas stove top, a double oven, a huge fridge! No plastic anywhere in sight, and glass storage for everything. Basically, Chef Michael Smith's pantry.
In closing, I would like to warn everyone that I am quite goofy and make really weird faces when I taste food, like this:
Which you will undoubtedly see. Because Im cool like that. PEACE!

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