The Incidental Spoon – A Home Cook’s Journey

I love to cook, LOVE.  I love the experiences that stem from planning and executing a recipe.  Trips to the market or butcher, setting the table, memories past or memories made, laughter and joy, or frustration at something gone wrong.  I love the journey of cooking.

One evening, after a wonderful afternoon cooking, my husband and I were discussing how I can turn these experiences, this JOURNEY, into a blog.  Document it, we were telling each other, maybe some will read it, maybe not, but a home cook’s documented journey.

There are A LOT of food bloggers.  How will I be different, creative, stand out?  Maybe I won’t, I thought, as the self doubt crept in.  There are so many cooks, so many writers.  We gazed down into our wine glasses, thinking.

If only we could find a way to incorporate the cookbooks, he said…

The cookbooks.  I have two bookshelves full of cookbooks (around 90) in my dining room.  Gorgeous, beloved cookbooks.  I collect them, love them, read them like novels.  They are family, these cookbooks.

…and social media, he continued…

Social media.  I have a hefty Facebook following from childhood, high school, college, and adult friends.  I have a small, but loyal, group of Twitter and Instagram followers who, I’d like to believe, enjoy my food and family related posts.

…link them somehow.  Let your followers choose what you cook.  Like it or not, you make it.  Then blog about it, all of it, blog about the journey, he finished.

So it was born.  Leave the decision to the masses (okay, not masses but few?).  I’ve numbered the books; each week, a follower will pick a number, then another for a page.  I will make what is on that page.  There will be stories, pictures and recipes.  There will be smiles (lots of smiles) and maybe some tears.  It will be easy and extremely challenging, depending on the week.  It will be a journey.

I hope you’ll join me on this ride…pick a number…