Taking A Bite Out Of Blogger

   So this is my first official blog post! Stepping out into some new territory and not quite sure what to expect. I read a few blogs and have been mulling around the idea for a while. The hardest part was thinking about what in my life could be interesting enough to really write at length about. I'm just an average person that works and has a mild obsession with the Food Network, cooking and going out to restaurants. Obviously I like food but it took my husband suggesting that I blog about it for me to catch on that if I can talk about food/cooking all the time I can probably write about it pretty easy. 
   I started out as a REALLY picky eater and still have a few food phobias [more like dislikes] but if you ask my family I have come leaps and bounds in the past several years. I attribute my food awakening to the Food Network and to be more precise the original Iron Chef episodes from Japan. I found them one night on TV and remember being sucked in instantly. My parents didn't understand why I was so enthralled to watch meals that I would never eat. I acknowledged that I wouldn't go near 2/3rds of the dishes but still I was sucked in. Iron Chef became one of those shows that you would rush home to see or schedule other things around [this was all pre DVR. Which I can't live without now...] I was a solid Morimoto fan from the beginning. I think his food always seemed more approachable to me. It's one of my plans that if I'm ever near any of his restaurants to hit them up no matter the cost.  
   After watching Iron Chef until I'd seen some episodes several times I started to have an itch. I started wandering into the kitchen and quizzing Penni [My stepmom] about why she did this or that while cooking. Penni didn't really measure or use cookbooks and I was mesmerized by how she knew what went together and how to cook it. My life had by no means been a culinary desert before this moment. Both sets of parents were fabulous cooks who loved food and family gatherings were usually defined by the meals. My family had just learned early on that when I decided not eat something that was it. I was one of those kids that would sit at the table for hours refusing to eat peas and negotiating my way to what I wanted to eat. They figured it was easier to tailor my meals and allow me to deprive myself of the food world than stay up all night sitting at the table. They left out onions/mushrooms/tomatoes; they didn't offer sauces since I would scrape them off anyway and kept plenty of bread on hand since I would fill up on it every meal. My eating habits were difficult to say the least but Iron Chef Japan cracked the door open for me and got my culinary wheels turning. For the first time in my life I was truly interested in what was in my food not what wasn't. I guess it's fitting that the first night of this blog about my food adventures I made an Asian meal for dinner :) [Didn't even plan it that way]

Hoisin Garlic Beef & Broccoli Noddles