Welcome to my blog!

So, this is new to me, and I've never been much of a writer, so we'll see how it goes. I've been thinking about doing some sort of food related blog for a while, and now that I recently have bought a snazzy new camera, I was thinking I could put the two together here.

I've been cooking for about 6 years now, and I absolutely love it. I am pretty much interested in all aspects of cooking, I love baking, making dinner, producing tons of food for parties, and eating :). I'm interested in just about any type of food, and love cooking complicated recipes, super easy standbys, and some of my own recipes. Almost all of my cooking I do with my boyfriend, it's an amazing way to have fun, work together, and produce something together. Most of the recipes I'll talk about here will either be from cookbooks, or something the two of us came up with.

As far as photography goes, I'm a newbie. I have probably been seriously making it my hobby for about 3 years now, but have gotten more serious the past year. I take tons of pictures of the food I make. I was thinking earlier that photography and cooking are actually really similar. With photography, you can visually share your experiences and views with others. However, and I think about this mostly while I'm taking pictures of food and flowers, you can't capture smells or tastes. With a well written recipe, you can! A recipe is like a photo that includes all of the senses, and it's a more direct way to share an experience. I think that's pretty neat.

I am currently a chemical engineering graduate student, 3 years in to a 5-6 year program. Sometimes (let's face it, often) in grad school you feel like you aren't accomplishing anything, not producing anything, and that what you are doing is a waste. So when I get home and am frustrated, even if I'm tired, cooking makes me feel better. Research and cooking are very similar, you can either follow and try to replicate a procedure made by someone more experienced, or experiment and try new things. However, you can eat the results of your cooking, not your research! But on a more serious note, I think the same drive and traits that make me pursue research also make me want to cook. In short, cooking makes me happy, and sometimes makes up for the pitfalls in grad school.