When I was younger and writing a lot of songs, lyrics and melodies popped into my head at the worst times when I didn’t have a pen and paper nearby. Considering I was a late adopter of the iPhone, it wasn’t very easy to jot down a lyric in my flip phone so I had little slips of paper floating around in my purse, my wallet and on my desk all. the. time. While the end product is different than writing a song, I rely on those same spurts of creativity and inspiration to help me create recipes and content for you all!
Obviously some Food Network or reading Bon Appetit magazine can get the ideas flowing, but sometimes it will be a smell that triggers a food memory or a curiosity about an ingredient that will lead me to experiment in my cucina. I recently shadowed a cooking class (did you see it on my snapchat? @keystothecucina wink wink) and in 90 minutes learned how to cook the best rice pilaf and I learned about the power combo of bacon and lentils. It’s pure genius in case you didn’t know!
To share with you a little about where my inspiration comes from, first you have to know that most of the day my thoughts are filled with food – what I’m currently eating, what I plan to eat or what I want to eat. I’ll decide to work with a tried and true recipe but then experiment with a new ingredient like adding pork to this chili, or lighten up a family classic by substituting a healthier meat a la these turkey meatballs. The entire process goes something like this:
- Make a note in my iPhone with a recipe idea.
- Gather all of the ingredients, jot them down in my note book then move through the steps of the recipe, taking notes as I go.
- As I’m cooking I’ll dream up what I want the tablescape to look like, what linens I want to use, serving ware, etc. and then it’s picture time.
- I take about 60 pictures of each recipe just to make sure I have plenty of images to choose from, then it is off to the computer I go to edit photos, compose a post and complete the recipe instructions.
