Fresh, daring, doable ideas for home cooking!

My cooking classes are about spicing it up in your home kitchen.  They are meant to inspire and to give you new ideas so that you can fully experience all that food and eating have to add to our well-being.

Our bodies are built to need food quite often, multiple times a day, every day!  If you think of it…that is a lot of eating, food prep and purchasing.  There are so many exciting flavors and ingredients in the world.  Let’s have variety in our diets, let it take us on a journey to different times and places!

Eating also puts a stop in our day, giving us time to rest and to socialize.  One of my favorite things to do in life is to sit around a table with family and good friends and take time to laugh, enjoy each other, and get to know one another while partaking in food that makes us want to linger and savor.  It deepens our relationships.  When I eat alone, it is a quiet moment of rejuvenation, a space in my day that breaks up the busyness.

Of course, there is also the pure pleasure one experiences when we eat a delicious morsel of food.  While we are experiencing the textures, flavors and aromas or that bite….all is well.  Maybe we feel comfort, joy, or a sense of well-being.  Maybe it brings back a memory or helps up feel connected to a person or a place.   Eating goes beyond the basics of keeping our bodies going!

The SpicySweet name is inspired by the Thai concept of putting together the “five flavors” within one dish or an entire meal in order to create a delicious balance.  The five flavors are salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy.  When there is balance between some or all of these flavors, magic happens.  Think about chocolate covered pretzels…the balance of sweet and salty makes you want to take another bite and another and another.  How about a well-executed tomato sauce that has the sweetness of the tomatoes, the bitter of the herbs and the spicy of red pepper flakes?  Think about an Asian stir-fry which can embody the balance all five flavors in one recipe…..soy sauce, chili paste, cilantro, sugar, and vinegar.  Often when a recipe is a favorite among all, balance among its flavors is a major contributer.  Not only do we want to achieve a balance with flavors in our food but we also strive for that balance in our lives!

All of this can be achieved with delicious recipes that we can make in our own homes for our family and friends.  I hope these classes inspire you to make something new and delicious and to deepen your food experience.

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