A New Approach

I've decided to try a new approach.. I'm 27 years old and have been married for nearly two years. I thought I knew how to cook until I got married. My husband is a very thoughtful and particular eater, he knows more about flavor and texture than I've ever thought about in my whole life. I have therefore come to the conclusion I need to learn how to REALLY cook. I usually just take what knowledge I have and wing it with a new recipe, but I'm going to start doing some studying of proper cooking skills and techniques and learn how to make meals without a recipe.
Don't get me wrong, I know more than just how to boil an egg and make macaroni and cheese. In fact, it didn't take long for me, during college, to earn the title of Betty Crocker. I was always baking a cobbler or a cake or bar cookies in order to stave off hunger and homesickness. I can also make a salad as well as the next going-on-30-year-old-woman. But, although my mother trained me how to bake and my father taught me how to make gravy; and it was enough to get me through college and even single-hood-dom, it isn't enough to get me through life. Since I don't have a personal cheif and we can't eat out half the time, I am going to have to learn how to cook.
Okay so I'm not going to just blog about my experiences in the kitchen, although entertaining they may be. I've realized that not many people I know are as intrigued, no, obsessed with kitchen activities as I am. And can I just say, the kitchen has to be my most favorite room in the whole house; in my mind, it is it's own dwelling apart from the rest of the house, a refuge of flavor, aroma, and magic from the ever so discouraging unextraordinariment of life. So as there is no one for me to really bond my culinary zeal with, I thought at least I can journal my thoughts off into the void of the Internet to perhaps find some kind of validation with myself.
No other occupation in this life gives me more satisfaction than to place something I've created in front of a loved one and to hear that irrepressible Mmmmmm resonate through his or her nasal passages at first bite. Baking is a noble work indeed, it brings smiles to a child's face, comfort to a lonely heart, and warms the soul that's been left out in the cold unkind world. If you want to make a friend out of an enemy, bake him something! As wonderful as baking is, and I do adore it, there is an area of my education that until now has been left to chance. Cooking dinner. Now I don't claim for an instant to know everything about baking or even enough, so I will be schooling myself in this art as well, and I'm sure you will be able to read plenty about it. I am going to try to focus on cooking and invite it to win my heart. I have too much of a sweet tooth that my thighs will tell you I've indulged too much, so I am switching gears and looking forward to a courtship with cooking and thinner years ahead.
I've ordered myself a couple cook books by Julia Child : Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 1 and Julia's Kitchen Wisdom. I also have a Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book Special Edition given to me as a wedding gift, three french cookbooks, a couple Williams-Sonoma, and a Yogurt cookbook. I recently read the French Women Don't Get Fat books and have tried a few recipes included in them, and I will probably try a few more on my new cooking journey. A Betty Crocker Cookbook will have to be added to my collection later, but for now these are what I have to work with. Happy Cooking! I've some reading to do tonight!