And So It Begins ...

My name is laura and here's my story:
I currently work in education reform for a large education non-profit and, before that, I taught middle school, junior high, and high school literacy for several years in Washington, D.C. public schools. I am deeply passionate about educating children -- especially children who, because of where they live, might not have access to a strong, public education. My current work is incredibly rigorous and rewarding, but it leaves me with limited time to pursue my personal passions. As it turns out, one of my most fervent interests is something I know very little about: cooking.

Just over five years ago when I was a first-year teacher in D.C., I had several significantly failed attempts at cooking (including a disaster with tofu, some lettuce-wraps gone horribly wrong, and a lasagna that, due to a misreading of ingredients, included 2 12-ounce cans of tomato paste versus 2 6-ounce cans. I tasted tomato for weeks afterward.). These events prompted three years of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, frozen hamburger patties, and sauteed chicken and spinach (the only cooking technique I owned was throwing protein in a hot skillet with olive oil). When I left the classroom to work in education more broadly, I also moved to a new apartment with a larger, renovated kitchen and a roof-top deck with a 12-foot planter perfect for herbs and small veggies. This was two years ago, and it began my quest to cook...well.

Fast forward two years: I am now what I would call a proficient home cook. I am able to navigate my way (albeit clumsily) through fairly complicated recipes (a 2-day, from-scratch barbecue, for example, or Coq au Vin), I own several three-generation-old cast iron skillets which I successfully restored from dust and rust and re-seasoned on my own, three Wusthof knives (one 3.5-inch paring, 5-inch paring, and 10-inch Santoku), and the following books: The Professional Chef, Knife Skills, Larousse Gastronomique, and My Life in France. Additionally, the sole TV program I have any remote interest in watching is, of course, Top Chef which, when on, gets the fullest possible attention known to mankind and religious silence. I subscribe to Food and Wine and Saveur magazines. So where does all of this leave me? -- Not much further than where I was five years ago, with nightly chicken dinners and bad lasagna. True: my food is tastier and I am more fluent in the kitchen. But I am nowhere near being a Chef.

And so: welcome to my journey. I can't promise I'll be posting often (potentially, the better for you), however -- my quest is to cook and to cook well. Too busy and too afraid of copious student debt (and frankly, too damn stubborn and insistent that I can do this myself), I have eschewed culinary school in the hopes of teaching myself how to cook...well. We'll see just how good a teacher I really am. Cheers!