Episode 1: The Birth of A Blog

Over a year ago, my friend Lauren and I were making Christmas cookies and laughing about everything- as usual.  We decided that if we ever had a show on Food Network, it would be called Hot Stuff in the Kitchen.  We still laugh about this today and so the name of this new blog is a tribute to our hilarious friendship!

A food blog is something I've been thinking about for a long time. I love to bake, I like to cook and I do my best at taking pictures... add those things together and it sounds like another food blog to me.

The difference between other food blogs and mine is that I am a complete amateur! I quite prefer my amateur status, while I have no intention of looking into baking Olympics, it does allow for me to make mistakes.  And I do make mistakes.  Sometimes the mistakes work out for me, sometimes the don't. But I am more than happy to embrace my mistakes and the amateur status that comes along with them.

One things that makes me so sad is that kids these days have no idea how to make cookies or mash potatoes.  My job takes me into a lot of elementary schools and part of what I talk to students about is nutrition.  Most of them know how to make their own frozen pizza (in the microwave), but most of them have no clue what an eggplant is. *Now, I will say, I am quite a picky eater and I do not cook with eggplant- but at least I know what it is and how to cook it.  A lot of kids think that cookies come from a yellow package in the fridge and cakes are made from red boxes in the pantry.  While I do not discount the convenience or yumminess of these options, in my opinion, nothing compares to homemade baked goods.

I supposed you could say that this blog is a food diary so that I can feel better about my kids learning to bake and cook like I did growing up.  While my son's involvement in the kitchen right now is playing the drums on my stock pot, he is more than comfortable being in the kitchen and soon enough he will help with measuring and pouring.

I really hope that this turns into a fun adventure that leads to many memories to laugh about for years to come.