I am someone who enjoys making and eating great food. I’ve been told that I loved to eat from the time I was a baby. Food was a central element in my childhood home, and I liked it a lot. I am also an engineer (electrical), so my food focus is on ingredients, process, and taste. I do a lot of experimentation. The results are usually very good. Understanding the roots of a dish, the flavor composit
ion from the ingredients or how they are treated, and the expected qualities of the finished product coalesce like a big equation in my mind. It’s problem solving in a relaxed way, separate from the stresses of daily life. Expectations in congruence with reality equals good food. I like to share. Food and cooking is all about the satisfaction of sharing something with others. I have no secrets in my cooking, I will share anything I know. Of course, you might need to ask. On the eating side, the more happy eaters I have, the more I can cook! I like a challenge, trying new things and new ways of doing things. Complex preparations, multi-step processes, starting with raw materials instead of processed ingredients, cooking for large groups, cooking brings a lot of fun challenges. Challenging projects expand my view of food and allow growth and learning. Soon things that were challenging become routine, and they open a world of new adventures. I have been a serious home cook for about 30 years. I dabbled in cooking for about 10 years before that. I know what I like, and I know what my family and friends like. For years, folks have said, “You need to open a restaurant” or “You need to write a book.” I didn’t think I had time for any of that. I have a family and I have a career. My Food Obsession has already taken over most of my spare time along with a lot of space in our home! I started thinking about this blog a few years ago after a barrage of coincidental events. People served me food and said they made it just like they remembered something I had made in the past. Others told campfire stories about something I had made that stuck in their mind. And still others asked me how I had made some dish from years gone by. I didn’t recall much of it. At best there were faded remnants or I would tell them, “Yes, sounds like something I would have made, and here is how I would do that today.” My food trajectory had launched me from those things, yet they remained as the foundation of the stuff I was still doing every day. I was still cooking and growing and gathering foods. I just needed to find a way to capture that for my own use and to share with others. Writing it down and snapping a few pictures didn’t really take a lot more time. So here we have my blog, “Tim’s Food Obsession.”
