I’m a cook.

I’m not a chef, not a food professional, not a gourmet. I am none of the words that people reach for when they mean to say “cook” but think the term is vaguely demeaning. I’m a cook.

When people ask what kind of cooking I do they expect an answer like “French food,” or “country style,” or “Asian.” But what I like is food that’s thoughtfully prepared and attractively presented, so that’s what I cook, or try to. Whether a dish has roots in the culinary traditions of any particular part of the globe isn’t my focus. Wherever it may herald from, an ingredient or technique or dish that makes for good food is worth exploring, and exploration is the point of this blog.

If you detect in the posts here an emphasis on foods from the Pacific Northwest, that’s because I live in Seattle and the most interesting ingredients I work with are often those closest at hand. Any impression you glean that my corner of the world is an especially great place to be or that I hold an outsized sense of pride toward it is probably just your imagination.