About me and my food!

I always loved food! I always loved to watch my mom or my grandma cooking...standing on a chair next to them and just observing what they were doing. Watching the steam over the pots filling the kittchen and the entire house with the smell of food - real food. Later in grammar school me and some foodie friends met after school and created new dishes before our parents came back from work. When I was 16 I became a vegetarian and proceed to create my stuff. I created my own vegetarian dishes as vegeatrian bacon and vegetarian Schnitzel were not born yet. but honestly? I would not have eaten that even if it would already have been existed.

Later as a journalst I travelled the world and was fascinated by the local restaurants, supermarkets and markets. I always tried to find restaurants where the locals dine. 

I remember I was in Buenos Aires sitting in a corner of a tiny restaurant with a colleague watching the locals rushing inn for lunch. Huge families with kids from new born to  "I really don't wanna sit here with you old people anymore"-teenagers. Those scenarios are the perfect entry to a story. So we were sitting there sucking up the atmosphere as the waitress came to take our order. That was back in my vegetarian days, so I asked "Do you have empanadas without meat?" She smiled that generous understanding smile and said: "Of course, chica!" Not long after that our empanadas came. The smell was delicious but do I smell a hint of ham? Yes I did, in fact it was a cheese and ham empanada. I wait till the waitress came back and asked her if that was maybe a mistake. "Did I get the wrong ones?" "No", she said, "you wanted the vegetarian ones, right?" I said "Yes, but those are with ham." She smiled at me and said: "Chica, ham is not meat!" and left. I couldn't help but laughing too....laughing about me. I mean, come on, I was in THE meat country. I picked the biggest parts out and ate - and they were DELICIOUS!

I was never a big fan of recipes. I don't know... it never worked out for me. Even if I did exactly what the recipe wanted me to do I missed the wow experience every single time. 

Was I doing anything wrong? Did I miss a part? 
No, it's as simple as that - recipes cannot be perfect. Just imagine tomatoes in Norway and tomatoes in Spain - the taste is different - not even comparable. The same with fruits, herbs, meat, fish ... you name it.  Different country, different taste, different consistence, different texture...and don't forget that we all taste different too. For some the slightest hint of pepper is unbearable whereas others need ghost pepper to taste anything at all. 

There is no perfect recipe but there is a perfect dish. You just have to know what to do when it doesn't taste as expected. And that's my thing - I won't give you an on point recipe but I will give you a basic recipe and the abilty to make it your one and only perfect dish!
Trust me I'm a foodie 😀