Welcome!
Akitachow is a food site with a dog motif. Why a dog motif? I love dogs and happen to have an akita-chow mix, named Berry. The “chow” part also refers to the food. You get it, right?
Food people are a bit strange — and this presents itself early on.
I took a strong interest in garde manger when I was a kid growing up in Queens. Before I was 10, I was in charge of holiday hors d’oeuvres. I pickled and canned my way through high school and college, and cooked nights and weekends during a 15+ year business career. In 2003 the business career was given its walking papers in favor of culinary school and professional food writing.
Here I am, poor but happy. It may be an old saw, but it’s accurate.
I’m an experimenter when it comes to cooking. I try to encourage others to cook by feel, or from the heart. Sticking to recipes is fine if you don’t have cooking in your bones and just need to get the job done, but it’s far better to use recipes as a means of developing your ability to put together pleasing flavor combinations — especially if you want to become a great cook. You have to take risks, too. I can’t tell you how many mediocre bowls of oyster stew and tough po’boys my husband and son suffered through until I nailed that bivalve.
A great cook is the one in the family whose roast chicken is legendary, or the one who put together a cheese and fruit platter by which you now judge all others.
Figure it this way: any competent cook can put together a fancy dish from a highfalutin cookbook, but it takes talent to coax a great soup from a couple of bones and a few root vegetables.
If you’d like to contact me, I’m at: primerib@akitachow.com
If you want to learn more about Berry, check this out: http://www.akitachow.com/the_pack/dog.html
Thanks for visiting!
