Thank you for visiting the Frequently Asked Questions page, where I will take this opportunity to clear a few things up and either explain or answer some of the most common questions and comments I receive in regards to this website…
Are all of the recipes yours? Are they original? – Absolutely not. I am not some super chef toiling away in obscurity, creating original masterpieces just waiting to be discovered. Almost 100% of all the recipes I use, and include on this website, are based off of a recipe I found in a cookbook somewhere or a website, or were taught to me by someone else. Two examples of websites where I often find recipes to tinker with are The Food Network website and Cooks Illustrated cookbooks.
Are you the best cook in your family? – Depends upon how you define my “family”. Between my wife and two children, yes, I am probably the best. But I have a brother who used to be the head chef in a restaurant back home in Louisville, and he is much better than I am, but he doesn’t get around to cooking as much as he ought to. I hope he is shamed by that comment.
How many times do you prepare your recipes to get your pictures? – This line of questioning confused me for awhile, until I learned that there is a whole subset of food bloggers who make the same dish over and over, at different times of the day, to get the best natural light to produce the best possible picture. That’s not me. At all. I cook when most people cook, right before it’s time to eat. And then I take a picture. My whole goal is to show what can be done in a normal kitchen, after work, using common ingredients. If the end result looks a bit ordinary and not quite cookbook or restaurant ready, I’m okay with that, it gives you a better idea of what to expect at home. Unless you are a professional chef yourself. In which case, you probably aren’t reading this anyway.
How edited are your movies? – My movies are certainly edited, not to eliminate mistakes or embarrassing footage, but to make sure that they make sense. I strip out all audio so that I can dub over the video, and I also remove the super boring parts, such as when I walk from Point A to Point B because I forgot what I was doing. I then speed up the video to 133% of the original speed, so that I don’t take up too much time and you don’t have to listen to me any longer than necessary. Just like taking pictures, I don’t redo a recipe to make myself look better, my mistakes are all readily apparent, both in my pictures as well as the videos.
Why do you always start your videos with an empty counter? – Because that is how I imagine most people start cooking, without a prep crew. My whole goal is to illustrate exactly what to expect when cooking any specific dish, and to show what can be made in any certain amount of time. I am not some super chef putting together a tv show. Rather, I am just a normal everyday guy who wants more people to cook at home and am trying in my own way to show how I get it done. By starting with all of the ingredients still in the pantry or refrigerator, I can give viewers an excellent idea of exactly what is involved to get the finished dish to the table, for each and every recipe.
What gives you the right to tell me what kind of “healthy” ingredients to use? Are you a doctor or scientist? – No, I am not a doctor, or scientist, but since this is my website, I get to decide which recipes I publish, and what ingredients I put into each of my dishes. I have spent the last few years reading a variety of blogs and a bunch of books, most going against the grain of the so-called “experts”, and have developed my own dietary guidelines. I’ve never claimed that these guidelines are “healthy” or that they will heal you, but I can tell you that I trust my own guidelines much more than the celebrity doctors I see on tv most days.
