Before the Meal, Before the Prep

Welcome to the newest and most honest food and cooking, self-teaching and innovating blog yet. I'm going to let you all in on the dishes I love and the attempts I make to go further than I have with making them. I'm not going to hide the failures; I just hope the successes are tasty enough to make them better.

For those who know me IRL or from social media and ended up here: Thanks for showing up! I'll try to keep it interesting. For those who have no clue about who this Professor Maybe guy is, I'll give some quick history. I grew up on my dad's small but functional farm in Massachusetts and I know this influenced the sort of foods that I go to reflexively. When your dad has a deal with the local donut shops to pick up their day olds to feed his drove of pigs, you learn to love pork and donuts. Fresh goat's milk and eggs that were inside a hen until this morning were an everyday thing as was
wild rhubarb in the backyard and zucchini so big it could be considered a weapon. Mom cooked quite a bit (she even taught Home Ec) and my sisters and I helped sometimes. I still remember making eggnog in the summer from the Young Children's Mix and Fix Cook Book because I got to use the blender.

Fast forward past the inevitable college cooking that we all seem to do (I'm looking at you Maruchan Ramen with an egg, cut up hot dogs and hot sauce), to me working in convenience stores and all the delectably greasy, hyper-processed sodium bombs that entails. While it can only loosely be called cooking, there's an odd temptation to mechanically separated chicken parts stuffed into a cellulose casing and vacuum sealed. After escaping the industry and the state, I started to wake up to truly amazing food during a two year sojourn in Hawaii.

My roommate was a breadmaker and we traded his hot from the oven loaves to neighbors for fish they pulled out of the ocean the night before, fresh mangos, or other succulent ingredients. The beaches and coffee were great, but the food! I still miss grabbing a bowl of poke or curry loco moco from L&L for lunch, but will admit that the occasional greaseburger combo from Jack in the Box was consumed as well. When the money started running out and the island fever started setting in, I ended up back in PA, working in a quick serve restaurant. Think "Subway" but with Amish Hipster Burritos.

I'll finish up the history in my next post and then we can get on to the real yum.

Time to cook some dinner.