Hi, I'm Anne, living in Belgium, Europe. And I like to cook. I don't like making food, but I do like to cook.
I'm not professionally working in the food business but I do like good food and finding out how things work and behave.
In 2007, the year I started my culinary training, I started with the first edition of a foodblog. Basic recipes (like the French cuisine had intended them) is what interests me the most.
By now, you'll find cooking shows, youtube channels and websites where ever you look or click. And for every meal you'll find a bazillion different recipes. Still, I find it very important to think about a recipe. Not simply doing what is written down. Figuring out why they do something, why a certain ingredient or technique is used. Predicting why something will fail. That's called dry cooking.
Cooking and 'making food' are no synonyms. I first read this difference on the blog from Minki. She is the daughter of a mother who is very good at making food and a father who is an excellent cook.
There are plenty of people who can make great food. If necessary, there is that delicious spaghetti on the table or the vegetable soup that the children love.
People who make food have a couple of recipes on hand that always succeed perfectly.
If they want to make something else, panic strikes. Then they look for a recipe that has ingredients that they all know and preferably also have in the house.
But if there is a (tiny) mistake in the recipe, then the meal will not turn out great. If, for example, you need ½ cup of water for something, and the recipe says 2 cups. Then those cups will be used, and they will not even blink an eye. After all: it was in the recipe.
They can handle a complicated recipe as long as everything is written in full and correct. Even a risotto can be done without any problems. But they prefer to use a packet, jar, tin with instructions. Family recipes are in good hands with them. Time after time, they'll put the same delicious food on the table.
The question is: have they cooked? Can they cook?
I don't think so.
If you cook, you don't follow any recipes. If you're going to cook, you look for all the recipes for 2 days and then make your own version of them. You taste, adapt, experiment, and if it fails, you usually know why it failed.
If you live with someone who makes good food, you will always have eaten well. If you live with someone who likes to cook, then you have to take the blow with the bump. Sometimes it is delicious, sometimes you can't swallow it down. The worst part is: it's not because you once ate something delicious that next time it will be precisely the same. Usually, it will not. When experimenting, cooks often forget to write down what they used. A little leftover here, a pinch there...
I have my own recipes. If I've found something delicious, I follow that recipe very carefully. If I don't, it will not be tasty anymore. The moment I think I know how the recipe goes, and I wing it, it will not be as good as the first try. Too sweet, too salty, too savoury, too little of something, too much of something (and the latter always happens too often, and you can't make it right anymore).
I don't like making food. When I'm alone, there's no cooked food on the table. I prefer to cook for visitors, for people, for people who can say it was tasty.
So now I have this website, and I have people for whom to cook. Thank you for being my critical public.
After losing a lot of weight (the pain in hips and back was becoming intolerable and I wanted to know if losing weight would solve the issue - it did not) I just know that I never want to go back to before. I'm now living the 'second half' of my life and I want to tackle those years in a good way. I like to eat and I like to enjoy food. But even more, I like to nourish my body, not stuff it with fake 'food'.
Will I turn a vegan, a vegetarian? Will I do gluten-free or low-carb?
What about oil-free of whole foods plant-based?
I'm not sure yet. I want to dive into all the different meal plans and find out what I like the best. To what my body and my palette react the best.
The only thing I'm convinced of before we start: sugar is my kryptonite and I want to avoid that like the plague.