So it begins...

Welcome to my new kitchen. I'm so glad you stopped by! Please, don't mind the bags of un shelved pantry goods that I have yet to move into my pantry. Oh, and certainly don't mind the pantry itself, the spiders are totally harmless, and the non-toxic bug spray has yet to perform its magic, so we're keeping each other company for a little while longer. To your right, you might notice a sizable stack of pots, pans, and small appliances that I've accumulated over the years, but until more shelf space magically avails itself to us, they are making themselves right at home on the rather limited counter space. And just beyond the pots and pans, yes, right there, on the other side of dishwasher that doesn't work, you'll find an open bottle of red wine. Help yourself, I know I always find it helpful in these types of situations...

While you're here, I'd love to introduce you to my new, and my husband’s long-time, home. It's an adorable Spanish-Bungalow style home in Los Angeles, with a great yard, excellent architectural flourishes, and every last vestige of devastation that can be wrought by the recent occupation of three bachelors for whom "homemaking" might as well be a foreign word from an alien language. Perhaps that's harsh. Perhaps.

By the time of our wedding, the roommates had peeled off, and I am left alone with my husband, Pie, ready to embark on a lifetime of domestic bliss. We've been moving my things in for the last week or so, and today, oh today, we found ourselves in the kitchen.

The kitchen poses a particularly knotty problem for me, because I am a person who loves to cook. I love to cook, and I am very particular about my environs in that regard. And as you might imagine, or, if you have dated an average bachelor, you may have noticed that their typical culinary repertoire consists of a stack of take-out menus and a cellular phone. So, I have found myself in the exciting, while not entirely enviable, position of building a kitchen from scratch, or relative scratch, since I have accumulated a few toys over the years.

My goal is very simple: I want to cook dinner for two as much as possible. This might sound like a simple task, but I do have a few rules that I am setting for myself.

Rule #1: I have $100 a week for groceries. And right now, I shop almost exclusively at Whole Foods and farmers markets. This alone is no small challenge, but I want to see where $100 can take me. Obviously, my first hope would be that I am able to be resourceful with my menus so that I can maintain my adherence to buying sustainable products, but, like so many Americans, I am finding my funds considerably limited of late.

Rule #2: I will be conscientious about my menu planning so that I can re-use components throughout the week in ways that are more interesting than simply re-heating.

Rule #3: I will design menus that are wholesome-- that minimize the use of refined flours and sugars, I will minimize my use of meats, and I will incorporate vegetables into every nook and cranny that I can, without sacrificing the very essence of my butter and bacon-fat loving soul.

Rule #4: I will build a personally useful pantry, piece-by-piece. I read all these cookbooks with three pages of pantry items, and I think to myself, "Well, it's going to be tough to buy three-grand's worth of pantry supplies with a $100 budget this week..." I think it will be interesting to see how a pantry can take shape over time, based on what items I actually use.

Rule #5: I will take it easy when I start making Alexander totally crazy. (I have a tendency to get obsessive about these types of things...)

My meta-goal, is to chronicle the process of how people can cook at home for their families, from start to, well, if not finish, then at least from start to up-and-running. I understand why people don't cook at home. If you cook infrequently, or only for special occasions (I'm look at you, t.) it's incredibly expensive to buy six different jars of spices for one recipe, not to mention the hassle of shopping, prepping, cleaning...

I don't aim to show anyone how to cook anything in 30 minutes. I am a person who loves food, and what I hope is, that through this blog, I am able to show you how it is entirely possible to decide one day that you want to cook from home, and hopefully, this blog might serve as a blueprint for how you can make it happen in your own small, under-equipped, but ultimately, well-meaning kitchen.