Today is Easter and I hope everyone enjoyed their Sunday with laughter and fun. In our family, holidays mean rushing around all day from the one set of grandparents to the next. It also means I am going to be eating several meals and end up with gastric distress all night long! This Easter was no different.

My contribution to this brunch was Peach Cobbler. Now I had spent some time looking around on the net trying to find a peach cobbler recipe and came across the Paula Deen recipe on the Food Network. After reading the reviews, I went home and made a batch and it was good, but I had to tweak a few things to make it mine. First you start with 3 cups of peaches (fresh preferred, but frozen will do) 1c sugar, and 1/2c water. Put these items in a saute pan and simmer on med/low for 10 mins. I added cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove to taste and added the juice from one lemon to the peaches while simmering. The lemon helps cut the sweet taste and heightens the flavor. While your peaches are simmering, put 1.5c of "self rising" flour (do not use regular flour, it will not rise), 1c sugar, and 1.5c milk in a bowl and mix slowly to prevent lumps-set aside. Then take a 3qt bowl or pan and put 1 stick of butter in it and put in oven at 350. When peaches are done simmering, and the butter in the pan is melted, pour flour batter in the pan, followed by layering fruit on top and finish by pouring the juices over the top of it all. Finish by sprinkling cinnamon and a few sprinkles of kosher or sea salt on the top. The salt just teases your palate a little when eating. This all goes in the 350 oven for approx 20-30 mins. Serve warm with a dollop of cream, whipped cream, or ice cream.

I have also played around with other fruit like adding raisins or strawberries. During summertime, I will try blackberries when they are in season.

This recipe is definitely different than the one I grew up on, which I believe was the Bisquick recipe, but it is a fine tasting cobbler. I really enjoyed the added salt on top.....my palate just loves the sweet salty combo. This would be great for a summer picnic when you can use fresh fruit and large dollops of creamy cold ice cream....add blueberries and strawberries and it could be very "patriotic".

Well, the next on my list is making a "Juicy Lucy". If you are familiar with any of the Food Network or Discovery shows, the Juicy Lucy has been a reason for frequent stops for foodies in the Minnesota area. This hamburger is also one that is in the middle of a hot debate between two restaurants that claim they were the original inspiration of the said hamburger as well as both claiming they make the best Juicy Lucy. This amazing looking hamburger is literally stuffed with oodles of cheese and grilled. When you bite into this heavenly looking burger, the cheese spills out like delicious cheese lava. Ooooohhh what HEAVEN!

So, go on now....grab a plate!

So here I am....yes I am a blog virgin...this is my first post, on my first blog. This is quite an exciting moment! Being a blog virgin is a little bit scary, but hopefully over time it gets easier and easier. Let me start this whole thing by giving "props" to the person who (for lack of a more exciting term) "turned me on" to doing this blog. Thank you Beth, my co-worker, friend, and co-conspirator. She has been an inspiration to me on my cooking adventures, and shares this great love of talking about, drooling over, and (our favorite part) eating food. Thanks to my two other co-workers Jen and Tawn, who also share this love and allow me to bounce ideas off them and have volunteered to be my food critics anytime I need. And most of all, thanks to my darling wonderful husband, who has been willing to try everything I have put in front of him to eat with never so much as a peep if he didn't like it.

Let me tell you a little about me and what I am about....My name is Iama. I am married to a budding chef who has been in the food business for 16 years but longs to run his own menu rather than being a kitchen manager. We have a six year old son who my husband likens as his "sous chef" and has learned new techniques with his dad every week. In case you don't get what I am saying here...We love food. Not just the normal "love" of food, I mean we LOVE food. We love to cook it, eat it, talk about it, read books about it, obsess about the Food Network shows and dream of owning our own restraurant someday. I guess this makes us a "Foodie Family".

I grew up on a farm in California in a tight Sicilian-Irish family. Unfortuately for the Irish side, the Sicilian side was large and domineering when it came to food. I remember Sunday dinners with 30 or more people at my grandparents house for pasta with sugu, sausages, thick anchovie pizza, lasagna, and so much more! Every holiday our house was filled with family, friends, and a lot of food. I learned that the dinner table was the place that you could talk, share coversation, catch up on life, and learn about each other while sharing good food. Our dinner table saw a lot of laughs and happiness, tears and sorrow, but we were always there the next day looking forward to sharing another meal. Quite simply, this is where we shared our love.

Now I am 40, and have moved from California to the Pacific North West in a little-bitty town about 2 hours from Seattle. As you can imagine, culture shock was one of my first emotions going from a city of 175,000 to a town of about 20,000. However, as I married and had a child, the annoying things about a small town seemed to lessen as I began to appreciate the beauty of raising a child in small town and the slow pace was beginning to fit our lives as "parents". That being said, as far as cuisine goes, this town is lacking anything new and exciting. We have fresh and organic food options, farmers markets, etc, but this town is....well....remedial. There are really only one or two restaurants that I would spend any good money at. We seem to be heavy on the ho-hum asian choices and corportate restaurants, and light on innovative, traditional, made from scratch places. You know...those places that are so good, you are happy to give them your money?!? Yea, you know what I'm talking about.

That's what brings me here..to this blog. Since I can't find the restaurants here, I am going to have to do it myself. This will be the place where I will share my recipes for the kind of food we want to eat with all the good, bad and ugly results. I hope I can learn from you, as much as I hope you learn from me. So sit at my table with me and share some stories, learn about eachother, and best of all....share some love.