About Onederful Cooking

I grew up in a house of cooks and eaters. My father made a delicious spaghetti sauce that still makes me think of him whenever I make it. He also trademarked the fiddle faddle plates (i.e getting up in the middle of the night to go down and make a snack plate of meats, cheeses, spreads and sauces – whatever he could create to quench his hunger) My mother was known for creating what could be considered in those days as more exotic delights – A pretty big accomplishment considering that when they got married, she could barely boil water. A baker and a cooker, she was known for her ‘cookie bags’ during the holidays (6-7 different kinds of cookies given as presents) but also crepes and tempura, neither of which have I figured out how to make as well.

My sister probably had the most formal ‘training’ of us all, as she was the cook/manager at a Chinese restaurant during college, then a sous or line chef at a high-end restaurant on the Cape and finally as manager of the club on Fisher’s Island where she upgraded the food choices to the delight of the Islanders and met her husband. Her family has grown so large that she now primarily focuses on feeding them which is no small chore.

I am a blend of all that is my family. While I am not a baker, I have always enjoyed cooking and am definitely an experimenter when it comes to cooking. My first experience cooking for a friend was back in Providence. A restaurant I liked had this delicious dish of ‘black pepper linguine with shrimp and artichoke’ is some creamy, buttery dish. Not knowing what was in it, I slaved over this recipe trying to make it taste just right until I was pretty impressed with myself. I then invited over a friend who gave it the thumbs up. I had mixed feelings a few years later when I opened Bon Appetit, saw that recipe and realized that it was incredibly easy to make.

My cooking experience has led me from Providence (with a jaunt to Spain) to Boston to Washington, DC and now to New York and I have picked up as much as I could about cooking and cuisine along the way. Ironically in New York, where every type of food is available I have learned the most and yet, almost cooked the least which leads me to the main point of this blog.

When I first got here, I was in takeout heaven. No longer did I just have the option of takeout pizza, Chinese and Thai (very typical in metro DC) but now I could order icecream or bacon and eggs for breakfast or Korean bbq at 11 o’clock at night. You name it! NYC has it, whenever you want it and all at the touch of your fingers! While there are definitely pluses to this if you love food, the minus is that this gets expensive and takes the joy out of going out. So I decided to start cooking more so that when I do go out for dinner, it is a wonderful experience! My friends always tell me that they hate cooking because it either takes too much time or worse they end up with so much leftovers that they are sick of eating it. So I decided to focus my efforts on making tasty dishes for one (or maybe two). My reasoning – you can feed yourself and your honey that night or if you are flying solo, you will have enough for lunch the next day, but won’t be packing your freezer with 2 months worth of lasagna.

Thanks and I hope that you enjoy this journey with me.