Cooking Style

Red Bridge Cooking School, Vietnam

Hi everyone, I’m Patti.    

The mission of this blog is all about helping my readers become involved, happy home cooks.  My approach, for the most part, is minimalist – less is more.  Short ingredient lists, mostly common ingredients, few preparation steps, not a lot of equipment.

But sometimes, I’ll tell you when an adventure ISN’T so simple and what happens with that. So, not everything here is “easy” – like when I tackled Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon (because the Julie & Julia movie made a big deal out of mastering that recipe) or when I finally succeeded at scratch-made cinnamon rolls (sometimes the Martha in me needs to stretch).

Notoriously frugal, cheap, whatever you want to call me, that is also my cooking style.  We’re leftover eaters, thankfully, so things like Best Roasted Chicken have a second meal in mind, too.  But ”fatty” cooking – red meats, anything fried or sputtering fat are things I don’t often pursue; as much as I want to claim it’s for health standards, cleaning a greasy kitchen is a bummer.  Simple ingredients, good value, interesting new things, or family classics, successful outcome based on husband, Larry’s thumbs up.  He has to eat the food, too.  I also am a longtime food professional; my kitchen is a pretty good one.  Sometimes, it’s hired for corporate work like photo shoots, filming, tastings.