Everything must start somewhere...

Key performance indicator for a kitchen beginner:"If it looks like it, then you must have done it right!"

I guess it's true that a lot of extraordinary things happen on ordinary days. It was just any ordinary day for me. I woke up--not sure if I had work on that day--and the realization just came to me like divine inspiration.

I'm getting married.

And, Lord God, I don't know how to cook.

Sure, I know how to fry. But I guess everyone can do that. I know some recipes taught to me by my mom. She insists that I learn because I will eventually have to cook for my own family, etc, etc. But as she is always the automatic cook at home, I don't get to practice all the stock knowledge, resulting to my always mixing up ingredients (if I actually know the ingredient at all) and never getting the sequence of steps to stick to my head. Reading cookbooks and online recipes didn't exactly help me; I didn't understand the terms and all the prepping involved disenchanted me...what the hell is a slow cooker?!


And now I'm about to cross the border to a new life. I guess I must've panicked, I don't know... My fiance and I, as per our plans, will be moving to our own home a couple of years after we get married. But I found myself thinking, what would I feed my husband? My kids? Myself?


Then one day at work, I saw an officemate going through the pages of a small cookbook. It turned out to be the first issue of the quarterly released Yummy mini cookbook. I also took a look, saw how easy it was to understand (there were even recipes that can be cooked under 10 minutes, and some having just 5 main ingredients) and was delighted at how handy the book was (it was small enough to go into my bag).


Not long after, I came home with my own copy of Meals in Minutes and it was the first cookbook I ever owned in my entire life. And not long after that, my mom accompanied me to South Supermarket in Alabang to shop for ingredients--the first time we ever bought olive oil in the house! More first-ever times followed, until the first time I whipped up breakfast all by myself--and it was pasta! (I food I've always been fascinated with as I thought it was complex)


And so began my romance with the kitchen, and so begins the Beginner's Bible (read more). *BB*