Thus begins the first post on our new blog! We are Valah and Raven, a married set of English PhD. students (actually, I – Valah – am a ” PhD. student”, my husband Raven is a “PhD. candidate.”). With the new year, we will be beginning a new blogging journey. This blog will mostly be about our culinary adventures, but other creative things we do will also get posted here. We are both creative-types, so we always have something interesting in the works, whether it is in the kitchen or the shop. I knit, he sculpts; I crochet, he builds models; we both draw and write.

I just got a new cookbook, The Silver Spoon from Phaidon Press. It is full of Italian recipes (over 2000 of them according to the sticker on the front of the book!). Raven suggested that since I have been saying I want to cook and bake more often, and since he does most of the cooking already, we should cook together and work our way through my new cookbook (as far as we can given the unavailability of some ingredients here in S.E. Idaho. I’m not sure where we would get eel, for example).

Now, I have worked as a cook at several restaurants, and even a resort, but I will admit that I am not terribly patient with “fiddly” recipes. Raven is the the one who really enjoys fiddly recipes, as long as he has enough time to really focus on the cooking. I like recipes that are sensible and not too complex – things I can cook on a regular basis – rather than things I can only make if I have three days to prepare and nothing else to do all day but be in the kitchen. From what I have seen in my new cookbook, every single recipe fits with what I look for when I’m cooking. No excess frills or fussy techniques, just lots of varieties of good sensible food.

We might use recipes from other cookbooks too (since I may have a slight obsession with cookbooks and baking books), but the same rules apply for us, nothing too fiddly or fussy, just good food made with real, natural ingredients.