Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

My name is Traveller - apt, since I have travelled a lot and lived in about five different countries over the years. I now live in Saint Paul, MN as well, and am 27 years old. I work for a big company here, but in a past life, I spent many years in archaeolgoy, where I almost go ta PhD (long, painful story).

I love to bake first and foremost, but I also love to cook, and of course, eat. I love trying new foods, and the stranger the better sometimes. It's hard to meet people around here (MN) that are really adventurous eaters, so it's nice to have people here to chat with that are like me in that way. :)

And like LiveToEat, I an anxiously awaiting the opening of our farmers' markets. The one in Saint Paul is my favorite, and I hope that this weekend has some nice runner beans!

I'm 23, living in Seattle, working to save money for culinary school. My handle - una rata - is Spanish for rat, my zodiac year.

Food is my life. To an almost embarrassing extent. I make jokes all the time that the internet doesn't understand.

I'm 26. Bitchincamero is the name of my blog. Camero is my maiden name and was given the nickname from The Dead Milkmen's song.

I was born and raised in Miami. Lived in Boston for 4 years during college (Go Eagles!), then moved to NYC for 4 years for graduate school and work. I moved back to Miami last year and have been working on my cooking and my tan ever since.

By day, I'm the Production Manager at a digital agency. By night, I cook for my husband in my newly remodeled kitchen (with which I am completely in love). My parents are Cuban and my grandparents are Spanish, so I take a lot of inspiration from Chorizo :)

Every Friday night, I make homemade pizza (different toppings every week), drink a good IPA and fall asleep on the couch way too early.

Great backstories, everyone.

Since I chose the name LivetoEat, you can assume I'm not one who eats to live. I was a really picky child, but I luckily overcame that. Now I'm a food evangelist to everyone I know. @Traveller: there are picky eaters everywhere, but especially in Minnesota. Maybe it has something to do with the "MN nice" passive-aggressiveness!

My name is Jacquie and I'm a 26 year old New Yorker. I work in finance by day but am a home cook at night. I love to blog and talk about anything food related. My husband has deemed me a tree-hugger and I'm proud of it.

Outside of my finance job, I am also opening up a restaurant in the Philadelphia area with my husband and two of our friends.

I also plan on going to grad school part time in the fall to become a registered dietician. Lots going on with me and it's nice to have Serious Eats as an outlet/inlet for all the things I'm interested in: again, mainly food :o)

It's nice to meet everybody!

Hi Everyone! My name is: Izatryt (pronounced iz-zat-right) (aka Gretchen) I grew up in Boston and currently live in Mohnton, PA (near Reading). I am an interior designer and a home stager. I am married with 2 grown children and 4 grandchildren.

I can cook on my grill and on top of my stove. I am new to SE and have had a ball reading and joining in from time to time. I love food and although baking has not really hit my radar screen, I am becoming more open to the possibilities! I just took a cooking class and actually went out and purchased my first Le Creuset 5 qt. braising pan. It is mighty heavy and I picked the color red.

I get down to the city (Philadelphia) regularly and enjoy the dining scene there. Admittedly, I eat out more than I cook at home, but with my new found resources, I see that changing! Thank you all for your insight and great ideas. It is wonderful to meet everyone!!

I'm Chiffonade. I'm not very imaginative and don't have different names on different sites. I've been Chiffonade for about 15 years. (I have a very boring real name and my mother did not have the foresight to name me "Chiffonade.") I found SE because I have an internet troll most people here know. He's plagued me for three years. He came to SE and tried to post as me which is why my ID here had to be chiff0nade (with the zero). I had to clean up that mess and in the process found a really great site where foodies (like me!) can come to discuss our passion. I came, I loved, I stayed.

Hi, I'm Blush; I redden easily. I'm 32 and live in London, Ontario (a 2 hour drive west gets me to Detroit and a 2 hour drive east gets me to Toronto). I'm an intermediate cook and baker, but I come from a long line of fantastic cooks and bakers who grew up on farms. I'm hoping my genes kick in soon.

Hi, I'm Caley (it's a nickname that is derived from my middle name.) I'm twenty-nine and have lived in Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and just moved to Oslo, Norway in December. It's rather odd to wake up one morning, look around and find that you're in Oslo, Norway, particularly when it's December and therefore dark outside. I'm a writer and lapsed academic. I love bicycles, reading books and hanging out in louche bars. I cook together with my (Norwegian) boyfriend every day, and I love Persian food, Keralan food and stodgy Northern European food, especially sauerkraut and smoked fish.

I love reading these intros!

My nickname stems from an episode of The Backyardigans. My other usual internet nickname was taken. :)
I'm a mild-mannered 31 year-old tech nerd at a bank by day, mother and loving wife by night, and a home chef on the weekends. We live on a few acres in a rural area, which allows our family to have a some chickens and a huge garden. In the upcoming year we're going to try our hands at canning some of our lovely produce.
I'm a pretty good all-around cook who likes to learn techniques and the science behind them, then use the knowledge to make my own recipes. I love to cook for people, and believe that the act of providing a wholesome and delicious meal is one of the most important and loving things you can do for a person.

Hi Everyone, I'm 26, female, live in NYC and grew up on Long Island. I work in finance so I am stuck at a desk all day. The only thing that gets me through my boring work days is reading SE and other various food blogs. I don't know what it is but I love reading about food and restaurants. Everyone makes fun of me for it. I also love the food network, even when I hate it. I like to cook but I'm not very adventurous. I also love to eat out but don't get out as much as I wouldlike. If didn't have SE & other food sites I don't think I would survive. I can't wait until I grow up and can host parties at my house.

It's so great to learn about all of you!

Hello, I'm CookiePie -- that's what my mom calls me, even though I'm 37 and supposedly a grownup (ok, ok, stop laughing!). I'm the food editor at a fantastic women's magazine called All You. I live in Brooklyn and work in Manhattan. Serious Eats is a lot of fun for me, but it also helps me learn about what people are thinking about food and food-related issues, which is great for my work.

I've been a journalist for about 15 years, off and on -- during the off parts, I went to culinary school and spent a few years working in hotel and restaurant kitchens, catering, etc.

Aside from what I do at work, I cook and bake a ton at home, and am also in the process of writing my first cookbook. It's to be called "You Made That Dessert?", and it's for people who love food but have no cooking experience at all, so the recipes are written very simply, without any jargon. It's scheduled to come out in fall of '09.

So nice to meet you all!

Yo yo babaaayyy....ChelleyD. Actually, my given name is Michelle but I have been shortened to Chelle since I was 12. The D is of course, my last initial. Im 32, have my significant other Jake for over 5 years and the most important person in our lives is our Niece Taylor who is 10 and a total foodie.

I have owned 2 small coffee houses which, unfortunately, had to close because I didnt have enough local business. Yes, I am bitter and hateful, but that is another blog. I am a medical biller in my real life as is Jake. I was raised by my great-grandparents (it was the 70's...my parents liked heroin a little more than me!) and my great grandmother was an amazing baker but a God awful cook. I hit the kitchen around 17 and haven't really stopped. I consider myself pretty skilled in the kitchen and I have been told that "I have never seen anyone put so much attention into their food". *CLAP CLAP CLAP* I can bake but I hate it, so I try to avoid it. I would take a good salad over anything sweet any day of the week.

I still browse other websites like chow and whatnot, but I basically hang out here. Nowhere near as dramatic and serious as the other sites and the mods don't interrupt every blessed post with "sorry folks...". I hate being called folks. Chumps. I

Stacey here... better known in these parts as LoCo, an amalgam of my maiden name and hubby's last name, which we use to refer to ourselves collectively (because "loco" describes us so perfectly!). And I'm known more frequently in cyberspace as RouxTheDay, so please say howdy if you run across me out there...

I'm a native SoCalif 40-something mom/step-mom of six (plus a step-DIL), a step-granny of three, and madly in love with a semi-retired Mr. Wonderful. These days I "work" as a domestic goddess, along with sometime freelance research work from home, but mostly being semi-retired by association.

Food is one of my passions, but I don't really have many foodie friends, so I've been hanging out at SE for about a year, doing my best to scratch that constant itch. When I'm not eating or cooking or reading about food or talking about food or planning food-related activities or watching food on TV, you might find me taking care of my household duties. But probably not, because I'm more likely to be traveling the world or working on my family tree (my other all-consuming passions besides food), or working in the yard, or completely absorbed in a really good book.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The members on this forum are quite extraordinary. I moderate other boards, and this one has by far the best sense of community and camaraderie of any I spend time on. I love it here, and never cease to be amazed at what I learn. I'm especially astonished that I've come to think of people here as my friends, in spite of never having met. It's very out of character for me, and I think it says so much about what a special website Serious Eats really is.

I'm PestoGal because it's my favorite food in the world. I live in Portland, OR and work in publishing. I, like LivetoEat, was a very picky eater as a child; my diet consisted of mostly peanut butter and jelly and ice cream. Now I'm what I call a "half-assed vegetarian," which means I don't like most meat but will eat it on occasion. I have a fledgling food blog used to document what I cook on a semi-regular basis. I cook daily and try to maintain a healthy diet.

My "handle" is a result of malnutrition as a youth, genetics, and the occasional bar clash. I learned about good food when I entered the Navy and was amazed by the quantity and variety that was offered me. I determined that when I was on my own again I would learn to cook these wondrous things, but it took me fifty years to find someone who shared my passion for good food. She and I and our 4 dogs live in paradise: the Sierras of California. I enjoy the chit-chat on SE, but don't take my comments too seriously.

Hi...moibec here. I'm a mom to 4 boys (one's married and his wife is due any day now with what we think is going to be a girl...!) and a carpenter husband. Big appetites for plain old meat & potatoes in this house. I love to cook and bake, and fight an endless battle between that love for good interesting food and the mundane tastes of my family. As I get closer to turning 50 this summer, I'm leaning towards lower-cholesterol things and trying like heck to steer away from butter......eggs........cream...........salt...........baconnnnnn............(sigh), but am not too disciplined. At all.

I read Bon Appetit and Cook's Illustrated, will pick up the odd Cuisine at Home mag or Taste of Home issue (I know, I know.....) but am always looking for really homey and realistic things to serve my crew here.

Live in Washington State (west side) and work as a Legal Secretary.

First real job: dishwasher and then prep cook.

I love Paris, France (never been there) because it's romantic. The #22 is my favorite number and 1966 is the year I was born.

Favorite writer/chef/traveller/actor: Anthony Bourdain
Favorite chefs: Mario Batali and Gordon Ramsay

:-)

I am 23 and a graduate student at NCSU and UNC-Chapel Hill in a duel archives degree program. My boyfriend of 5 years got me into cooking - although I always have loved to bake.

I grew up in NC, so I love sweet tea and bbq (no tomatoes allowed near it!), but my mom is from Boston - where I go every summer, so I love New England and seafood as well!

oh and I'm krispychikin b/c thats been my screen name since I was 13 and it comes from a nickname when I was a kid.

I'm Jeni (obviously), a 29-year-old quasi-self-employed web designer (the rest of the time is spent being sick with fibro and CFIDS, ugh). I'm originally from the NC coast, but now split my time haphazardly between Burlington, NC and Roanoke, VA.

I started cooking pretty early - about 8 or so - and by high school my love affair with food and cooking was pretty much cemented. These days, cooking is the thing I do to keep me sane and happy, since there are a lot of other things I really can't do. I read far too many cookbooks, daydream about food all the time, and expend what little extra energy I have on cooking for my friends and family.

My relationship with food has changed dramatically since I was diagnosed with fibro and discovered I was allergic to MSG. At first it was a bit of a downer - no more KFC? no more convenient conventional grocery store? - but I've taken it as a challenge and feel I've risen to meet it. SE has been pretty helpful in that regard; I love taking some of the ideas and making them my own (spring asparagus and fried eggs - amazing!). Plus, the people here rock. It's nice to be in a community that doesn't dissolve into trolling and flaming on a daily basis.

So nice to read about everyone (but I'm nosy like that...) :)

I'm Lorie--luswim06 comes from a family nickname, Lu, and the sport I used to compete in. I'm 19 and I live in central PA. I'm currently wrapping up my freshman year at PSU, where I'm majoring in Nutritional Science. I love to cook and bake (I think that I'm most looking forward to finishing my semester just so I can go home and have a real kitchen again! I have many recipes I need to test out...).Can't remember when that first urge to bake struck me, but I look for any excuse to try out a new recipe (going somewhere? gotta cook something to bring along!). Being a nutrition geek, I am trying to build a nice collection of healthy recipes, particularly those that will satisfy my sweet tooth. (Take that as a hint to anyone who may have such recipes lying around...) I happened upon Serious Eats back in the fall, and I check it daily for entertainment, recipes, and just to relate my love of food and cooking with others! Thank you all :)

I'm Vegemite (AKA Jane), from Brisbane, Australia. Vegemite is our beloved condiment which almost every child grows up eating on toast for breakfast, or sandwiches for lunch, an I'm still addicted to it. Most non-Aussies just don't get Vegemite, and think it is quite revolting, but I'm a proud Vegemite Kid!
I work for a specialty food importer/wholesaler, so I live and breathe food every day. I consider myself lucky that I grew up travelling and had the opportunity to sample many types of cuisine.
I've been cooking for most of my 39 years and love to experiment with new stuff. I don't really like to bake because measuring ingredients bores me to tears, and I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but occasionally I'll rise to the challenge...
I prefer to support local organic farmers as I think the produce tastes much better, plus you're always getting what's in season. Of course I'm on the other side of the world so while you're all waxing lyrical about the joys of spring, I'm getting ready for some serious cold weather cooking...
I really enjoy reading about what everyone's cooking and eating, and it's very entertaining at times!
Thanks for all the SE fun!

Hello everyone, I live in rural upstate New York where it snows for 5 months of the year and the local economy is dairy cows. There is a farmer's market in a nearby college town, and I cannot wait until they open in early May. I own about 200 cookbooks and love to make delicious meals for my husband and friends. I used to travel on business to European countries a lot and really enjoyed trying the local foods. Now I work at home from my computer.

I'm modysoul. It's an approximation of how you pronounce my name in Spanish...

I'm mostly here because I may not be the best cook, but I love food like no one's business. My favorite foods are pizza (Slice shoutout!) and Mexican. I miss living in Arizona and being able to get kickin' burritos anytime of the day.

I currently live in Providence, RI, and I'm lucky enough to have a year long Farmers Market! It's just indoors during the winter... We also have tons of great restaurants around here, which I frequent often.

SE is my favorite work distraction.

As I continually reference in my comments (hehehe), I am a Bostonian living in Toronto, age 33, married to a guy who likes all but five foods - make that four and allergic to one. Being employed in a country where you are not a citizen (I am a permanent resident) is sometimes a struggle so when I am not working, cooking keeps me sane. When I first moved here I tried making all kinds of things, just to keep my brain from going to moosh. One of our favorite things to do is walk to the organic market in High Park on Saturdays (when is it opening for the season? grr) and buy all kinds of things, and then go home and make lunch - either a salad or stirfry depending on what was available.

i'm a pediatric occupational therapist, a manual therapist, and i teach the alexander technique. this guarantees me at least 15 minutes of stress free small talk with new acquaintances, since most people have never heard of any one of my professions. i live and work in manhattan. i moved here from san francisco about 12 years ago and i still miss the food in california, especially the berkeley bowl, where i worked my way through university, the greenmarket at ferry plaza, the cheese board, semi-freddi's seeded baguettes, and peets, but new york is slowly catching up.

being a scholarly type, i read about my work a lot, and i love to cook and i love to read about food. recently one friend gazed for a long time at all the books on my shelves and observed that i had a lot of cookbooks... and a lot of books about human anatomy... i'm still laughing about that.

when i'm not cooking or working, i'm at the gym trying to whittle down my running time to a ten minute mile and increasing my bench press to a hundred pounds, or i'm at the theater.

i live with my cat, who will only eat dry food.

I'm Phaelon56 aka Owen O'Neill of Syracuse NY. Some of you may recall that user name from my activity as a volunteer moderator in the eGullet Forums in past years but my online food/dining activities are now focused most just browsing on SE. I am an active participant in a coffee/espresso business discussion forum as well.

Most of my adult life has been spent here in central NY state but I spent four years in Ithaca and another four in the New York City area back in the 1990's and early 2000's. For many years I've been working as a Sales Engineer in a nice technology area related to computer networking but my avocation has been the coffee business. I've done espresso machine repairs and some barista work as a side job since 2003 and started working part time as a coffee roaster in 2004 for a local multi-location cafe operator.

At present I'm close to finishing the build-out of my own roasting operation and am totally stoked. It's been a long time coming and there's plenty of work ahead but I hope to migrate into coffee as a full time business over the next two years. There are no plans for a retail coffee shop per se but I will be selling roasted beans on the Web both wholesale and retail.

I love to cook and have a moderate skill level but living alone and working the hours that I do has me subsisting at present mostly on grocery store rotisserie chicken, bagged salad and fresh pasta with sauce from the local Italian imports store....

Holla!! Butrflygirly here-love butterflies (beautiful creatures) and I'm a girl so...

I am 30 y.o. and live in Delaware-born and raised. During the day I work in the finance industry and at night I am a student trying to get a master's degree in Management. This leaves me with zero time to cook most of the time..:( But when I do-it's delicious and my BF whom I live with will help me. He's the greatest..:) I would have to say we both have a passion for food-even though I am still a picky eater.

I LOVE to cook and bake. It all started when I was little and had to have the Easy Bake Oven (oh how I loved that thing). I was also very lucky to have the (italian) mom that I did (my love for Italian food is endless). She's an amazing cook-homemade meals everyday. I picked up on that as well-and I was in the kitchen helping her prepare those meals from when I was little. We would always watch the cooking shows on Saturdays and Sundays.

I love it here and am so happy that I joined SE a couple weeks ago! It's nice to meet everyone.
Special Shout Out to JudyV..:) We have similar tastes in DE places.
@bitchincamero: Glad you clarified-I was thinking you had a hot ride..:) And love that you love the EAGLES. I'm in withdraw right now.
@brooke29: I'm with you. Cooking for someone = love. Nothing better than cooking for someone/people and they love your food.

I'm annien--Annie Newman. Long-term fan of Ed Levine, followed him to his website, saw it grow into the powerhouse it is today, very gratified to meet so many nice people along the way. 49 years old, graduate student in social work, one 18-year-old daughter who loves to cook with me. I got into cooking and foodie-ism as a way to understand and live with eating disorder. The more I know about food and nutrition, the better I can feed myself. Also, the more you know about food, the better you can use your food dollars; less waste, more fuel. I live in Kingston, NY (the Hudson Valley) and our Greenmarkets will open in about a month. Can't wait! Also please see my blog, Annie's New York Eats.(http://www.annienewman.typepad.com)

Hi everyone - sixsonnets here, aka Andi. I am 37, single, and I live/work in Westchester County, NY about half an hour north of NYC. Am something of an amateur cook but surprised how much knowledge I've picked up just from reading SE and watching a lot of cooking shows. I've been hanging around SE for a couple of months now and I really love the community and everyone's willingness to help and respond to one another. In addition to cooking I am a writer, a marketing director and a rabbi-in-training. The name sixsonnets comes from my hopefully-will-someday-be-published novel which centers around the discovery of a medieval manuscript that contains, you guessed it, six sonnets.

Hi, foodiegirl here. Not a very creative handle, as I'm not a writer like many of you. I'm 33, grew up in Chinatown, Los Angeles. I have a cousin who graduated from the CIA in New Hyde Park who's been my inspiration for going from one who thinks instant udon is gourmet, to now making stock from scratch. I love food, all aspects of it, love to try new things at least once, and that includes adrenaline related things like jumping out of a plane to bizzarre food type things, like gnawing on chicken feet at dim sum, and eating chicken sashimi in japan, that was scary given my western upbringing of raw chicken=salmonella. I love SE and getting to skim the surface of the members, from Canada, Denmark, all over, it's awesome.

Hello, I'm sarajane, first name is Sara, middle name Jane. Grew up in the farthest Chicago suburb (though some would say it was the beginning of farmland). Married my high school sweetheart and moved to a closer in suburb. By day I'm an office manager in the scintillating world of industrial automation, by night, I'm a mixed media artist. I love to cook, having inherited that love and some skill from a German grandmother, a Welsh-Canadian grandmother (who was never afraid to try cooking something new and passed along her love of hoarding recipes) and my mother, who was also a great, fearless cook. I cook mostly from scratch, and one of the best compliments I ever got was from a friend who lived with us for a while: "You don't have any food in the house - only ingredients!" SE is a fabulous trove of information for the food-obsessed - sometimes serious, sometimes trivial, often very useful, but always entertaining and informative.

Matt here...a.k.a onepercent99....53, happily married, living in florida,a small town north of Tampa......assistant meat manager at a large grocery store where EVERYONE, customers and employees, flock to me when they want to know how to cook something! I love to cook,any kind of food,but always something different.I used to decorate wedding cakes for a side business ,but it got way too stressful. Trying to deliver and set up an hour before the reception....WHEW....couldn't take the stress,so now i only do cakes for family.I love buying any kind of cookbooks, i can sit and read them like most people read a good novel. When i cook for my wife,most of the time she's pleasantly suprised with the results and when she asks me my secret i ALWAYS say" I cooked it with love Babe"...lol....thats kind of like a family joke now. Nice reading about you all!!!!...hi MrsBao !!!!

I'm woodenspoon, named after a kitchen essential. I'm 22 and live in Washington, DC, where I work at a nonprofit. Grew up in Ohio as a very picky eater and have come a long way, though I still can't shed that label entirely. My family always laughs that I'll eat raw fish but won't touch a potato.

I've always liked to bake and cook and starting helping my parents do both at a pretty early age. Of course, my favorite part was licking the batter or trying the sauce, and whenever my dad would frost a cake, he'd squeeze some leftover icing right into my mouth. No wonder I have a sweet tooth.

Discovered SE about a year ago and love the mix of recipes, forums, news and photos!

I'm a forty-something Appalachian office drone who, were it not for the pesky need for insurance & salary, would happily spend her days tending a garden and baking.

For as long as I can remember, the creation and consumption of food has been my favorite topic. This must be the result of some strong gene, as my four year old spends every waking second wondering when, where & how he will get his next morsel.

I collect cookbooks (200 strong), love to create memorable birthday cakes for my kids and am currently trying to organize a circa 1950 kitchen to hold all my cooking, baking & serving gear.

How nice it is to spend a few moments each day in a cyberworld with like- minded people!

Well hi, everyone! As you could probably guess, I'm Liz and I live in NYC. I'm 25, I write ads, and I'm originally from the SF Bay Area. My parents recently relocated to South Carolina (where most of the extended family is) so, I have a great interest in and appreciation for the main food cultures in my life - city food, california cuisine (which was just food, growing up!) and southern food.

I'm young(ish) and on a tight budget, so the kitchen is a source of adventure for me - how little can I spend while still getting the flavors I want? I also love love love to bake and cook for friends and family. I'd love to write more about all of that, but I'm stuck for a blog name. SO many people out there have taken the domain names of blogs I'd want, and haven't used the darn things since the beginning of the century!

So, that's me.

I'm Joanne from Indiana. "AuntJone" came from my niece, who first started calling me "Aunt Doh", which morphed into "Aunt Doan" and finally became "Aunt Jone". That's how she spelled it on a thank you card one year and it stuck. We had a terrible time convincing the child that my name was really JO-ANNE...

Anyhoo...I'm a life long Hoosier and just celebrated my first anniversary with my second husband. We're expecting our first child in September and I have a wonderful 14 y/o boy from my first marriage, plus 2 ornery little terriers, 2 gerbils and more fish than I can count.

My first cooking experiences involved whatever weeds and mud were available in our big yard when I was quite small. My sister and I had all kinds of play dishes so I mixed up horrid concoctions but had a wonderful time of it. Later I dabbled a bit in the kitchen (with actual food) but not much, so my mom was suprised when I announced that was going to culinary school. It only took me 8 years to finish a 2 year program (going part time and working full time) but I finally graduated last summer and am looking forward to the day when I can permanently trade in my computer and office chair for kitchen clogs and oven mitts. I do work part time at a camp kitchen (which I love) and hope to transition to the world of food service full time in the next year or two.

Baking is my passion but I love cooking in general. I get great satisfaction from creating something to nourish my loved ones. I read SE nearly every day (fabulous time waster at work!) and comment on a semi-regular basis. I've learned alot from the site and enjoy interacting with other people who "get me".

@BITTER; I am the queen of dumb questions so you are good to go on that one!

Hi, I’m Gardener, and the name obviously points to one of my passions. I live north of San Francisco in the Sonoma wine country and am definitely spoiled with year-round farmers’ markets, fresh fish, local cheese, and great wine, of course! I am married, no children, have one spoiled cat, and I am firmly convinced that 50 is the new 30. I work at home, spend long hours at the computer, and love the occasional (hah) distraction of reading about food and researching recipes.

My first cooking experience was getting a little boy in the neighborhood to eat my mud cookies (very special with the added texture of peat moss). I graduated to real meat loaf in junior high and by high school was throwing dinner parties with the Gourmet Cooking Club (paella!). By the time I went off to college I was reading food magazines and cookbooks, clipping recipes, and insisting on a real dinner every night while my roommate thought anything other than Campbell’s soup and Tab was really just too much to contemplate.

Today, I still insist on a real dinner every night and it’s usually prepared by me, and my husband is happy to clean up except for when I make one of my famous “simple dinners”. He claims they employ the most pans, utensils, etc. but I personally don’t see what he is talking about. I collect vintage cookbooks and have a particular passion for mid-century pamphlets featuring the scariest food imaginable (think “Cocktail Wieners in Aspic”). My own cooking style features lots of fresh herbs and vegetables, liberal use of garlic and olive oil, and, damn the cholesterol, good cheese.

I love to garden and this time of year finds me digging in the dirt and planting, planting, planting. We’re putting in a vegetable garden again this summer and I can’t wait to hit the local garden club plant sales. Basil and tomatoes from my garden and I am one with the universe.

I'm Ginger CM - really named Ginger, don't have red hair. I split time between Tampa and a small town south of Atlanta (where I'm a college professor in mass comm at Flannery O'Connor's alma mater). I love to read about food, though I'm gluten (and a bunch of other things) intolerant and can't eat most of the stuff I see on here. I have a gf blog (gfingf.blogspot.com) and jokingly call myself the GF Paula Deen. 'Cept she's way, way richer than I am.
I am on Twitter with the same screen name and also on Facebook.

I'm levinedym, a 20 year-old Filipino-Chinese in the Philippines. Still preparing for a job (just graduated -- two days ago!), but it will definitely be in the infotech/compsci field.

I don't actually cook ('cause I still live with my parents), but I plan to do so when I go out into the big bad world on my own. I am a foodie; I love reading, looking, smelling, feeling, and tasting good food. I'm an Asia-phile (since I live here), but Western Cuisine is totally an option.

I stumbled on SE while 'Net surfing for a recipe for my mom. It's been part of my morning ritual ever since!

HappyHoarfrost is the name of my blog, which is irony as seen through the lens of that lusty, all-purpose metaphor: FOOD. www.happyhoarfrost.com
I am also a mother, full-time artisan & mompreneur, who is "somewhere between 20 and 40." [My company, The Happy Tomato www.happytomatokids.com
is a line of hand-printed clothing based on a series of my wood-block carvings, which I started to contribute to my Wegman's bills, and to guard against the often mind-numbing monotony of staying home with infants. I am starting to move into food prints, so if you have any ideas, there is a big audience-participation factor, so drop me a line. I bet Serious Eatsians'd have some interesting and obscure requests--because hey--where else are you going to FIND a magalista hog belly t-shirt or a Leeks diaper-cover?]
I adore Michael Ruhlman, and Anthony Bourdain, and religiously read The French Laundry at Home blog which makes my bladder explode.
Though I greatly enjoy Bourdain's poor judgement as a rule, I don't care WHAT he'd say: I have a not-so covert adoration for Bobby Flay, and his *sigh, 14-inch tongs. (It's become a gag-theme to see how I can work him into my blog posts, which I almost always find a way to do.)
I love reading, massaging, pondering and writing about food, especially meat, gently mocking Vegans, who fascinate and confuse me, and am disappointed/secretly pleased with myself that I never stick to a recipe, which is why I can't bake.
And I'm an Aries, which doesn't interfere at all with my lamb-consumption.

I am 45 years old and am feeling quite cool to be in the company of so many 20-somethings. I have two boys, ages 7 and 4, and one hungry husband. I live in Davis Calif. where the University of Calif. had its original 'farm school.' Food is a big deal here - lots of CSA, organic, local food - but strangely no great restaurants.

I lived in Kuala Lumpur as a kid and have traveled throughout most of southeast Asia and through western Europe. I love Asian food (am still searching for the right marinade for satay) and French, and Italian, and ...
well, you get the picture.

I am trying to keep our diet as healthy as possible - so no prepared foods (well, OK, I don't bake our bread and I buy pasta). I feel very lucky that my kids are adventurous eaters (they love mussels and tonight we had linguine with white clam sauce which they gobbled up!). I love food and look forward to meals all day long. I also love variety so I like to cook food from many different cultures. Wonder what will be on tomorrow's menu!

PS I wish Jerzee Tomato would post here - I love reading her comments!

Ok ok I hear you.
I am Jerzee tomato, I am from Jersey. I been a lurker for a long time. I started my lurking over with Jason on Egullet. Then as years progressed I just went wandering and landed on the beta of SE. I am an italian american food snob. I live in Penciltucky not far from Perky Mac. I shop therefore I am.
This is like that Steve Miller song... I am a joker, a chicken smoker and a midnight poster.
I cook, I bake, I fiddle with recipes. I drive 40 miles for cheese.
I came to SE with an open mind. This is a great welcoming place. We throw around ideas, recipes, techniques and our love of food.
I carry with me a love of food ingrained in me from birth. Something so strong that it calls to me in the smell of a basil leaf, the rough sack of some flour, the bright label of a jar. It says to me " what can you do with me?" This is my story on how the pantry got to be so big and why it is so full, so no one tell the Husband.
In 2002 I gave up a new car for a new kitchen. It was the addiction of all time and I don't want to be cured. I go to Philly, Baltimore, Lancaster, Raleigh and any where in between. My haunts are farmers markets, odd graineries, cheese shops and out of the way places to find things I have never had before. I adore Wegman's, Fresh Market, Trader Joe's and the odd Shop Rite.
I speak many kinds of food.
I am an entertainer. The holidays are usually at my house and I have the menu done for them months before. I like the control (freak) that having them here affords me.
My mother is a fairly good cook. I harassed and bullied her till she let me take over the kitchen. Ever had an 8 year old throw you out of your kitchen. Why they did not beat my ass I will never know. It stuck. I stood on chairs till I was 12 to reach the stove.
Everything that is online, Cooks Illustrated, King Arthur, Williams-Sonoma, Penzeys; I ordered before the internet. I got many things via catalog.
I am a gardner. I grow basil and tomatoes and a few other things. I can my own tomatoes and have done so forever.
Twirling like Julie Andrews with a baguette...these are a few of my favorite things. SE is my home and my friends are here.

Hey BAngieB - are you on Jezebel as well?

My name is Mike age 51 and I live in Houston, Texas. I have been married for 29 years and have 3 grown kids. I am a hamburger fanatic. They say I will be buried between two buns.

I do almost all the cooking at my house. If I get bored or frustrated, I start making bread and pizza.

I love the Food Network. Serious Eats, AHT and HollyEats.

I have three websites: Eatorama.com, MrBadIdeas.com, FreeEnterpriseland.com and a myspace page.

Eatorama and MrBadIdeas share the Hamburger Porno page -"which makes some people sick and some people drool".

@izatryt - great minds think alike, and ask the same dumb questions ROFL.

My name is Hillary, I'm 22 and I work in the publishing industry. I love to write for my food blog called Chew on That and I LOVE the Serious Eats Talk forum :)

Thanks for starting this thread!

PerkyMac adding my 2 cents (there is no symbol on my 'puter for cents!). I live in the Perkiomen Valley in PA, hence the Perky