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About

In the garden, August 2008

Born and raised in Toronto I  enjoy exploring the city’s restaurant scene, especially at places that serve simple, uncomplicated food for a reasonable price. Equally, I really enjoy cooking either when armed with a precise and well thought-out recipe or alternately with just a general idea of what I’m going to make. And recently I’ve taken up organic vegetable gardening in a fairly big way so that I could get a deeper sense of what happens before fork meets food and for what tastes good at a particular time of year.

I have noticed that those who don’t write a blog are drawn to ask those of us who do variations on a simple question: “why bother?”.  Fair question.  For me, this did begin as just a journal: a place to record the recipes I like best; remind me of excellent restaurant meals; or leave gardening notes for the me of future summers.

Quickly, I realised that “see my blog post” was a good (if lazy) answer to questions like “wow, these are good cheese poofs, may I have the recipe?” or “my date can’t get enough cow heart, where do you recommend I take her?”  In others words I’m happy to help and share with friends, family, well-wishers, and the rest of you debauched souls, especially if it  means you’ll less shitty food.

As is so often the case the greatest benefit of this blogging project was an unexpected one.  Writing about what I cook, eat, and grow has changed how I think about food.  Usually this means thinking about the other two when I’m doing the third–”how does this burger compare to the one I had last week at X restaurant?” or “this spinach might be local but there’s no way it’s grown outside, in a field at this time of year”.   The quality control that I apply to the content causes me to diversify my cooking experiments and  restaurant selection but also to be more exacting in the “search for perfection” when I undertake a new food adventure.

Of course, blogging for over a year has also reminded me how much I like to write.  If the more than a hundred posts here aren’t enough for you please take a look at some of my other food writing:

Please feel free to comment on posts, link to ones you enjoy, or get in touch with me at info@foodwithlegs.com.

The garden, October 2009