Hi! Thanks for stopping by. I’m Kris.
The Quick Version:
- Location: Just outside of Washington, D.C.
- Age: Still plenty of time between me and Get-off-my-lawn
- Family: One patient husband, one cute toddler
- Pets: Two cats competing with me for Grumpiest-in-Morning
- Schooled: United States Military Academy, 2001; Missouri Institute of Science and Technology, 2005; University of Virginia, 2010; all engineering type things
- Cooking Schooled: Dish-washing to waitressing to line cook to Virginia Culinary Institute
- Current Occupations: Army engineer officer, data analyst & strategist
- Army Service: 19 years; with college, 23 years in Army boots {no, not the same boots}
- Hobbies: Have you read the blog? I make pretty food and take pictures of it. I also run.
- Savory or Sweet: As long as there’s butter
- Outlook: Sunny but still have to grump about the sunburn
- Food Philosophy: It doesn’t have to be fancy to be good; often, simple is best
- Food Style: Central Coast Casual – lots of Italian and Mexican influences and simple fresh ingredients whenever possible
- Favorite Recipe: So far, my all time favorite is my crock-pot chicken chili!
What Else Should You Know:
I’m a career Army officer, but this isn’t a military blog. In fact, it’s the opposite – it’s a {mostly} food blog about cooking and life on our home front.
Consider this my online recipe box and kitchen table, where you can drop on in for one of my favorite Army traditions – sharing good food with good friends that we all know we whipped together at the last minute out of whatever was in our pantry at the time but tastes like we spent all day working on it! Because it doesn’t have to be fancy to be good. I’ve been in plenty of places where even having canned food is a luxury, and I try to cook like I remember that.
We all know there are going to be last minute guests, a potluck we forgot about, a family in our organization who just had a baby and needs a freezer meal stash, or some other occasion where we have to have those go-to quick recipes that will feed a couple, a couple families, or a couple dozen.
Last minute entertaining is a truth we never mention, but it’s what makes us ask, after the dishes are cleared, after the wine glasses are empty, after a game or two has been played or we’ve told a story or two, where in the world you got that recipe. We all know it’s great, we all know it probably comes from a box of this, a dash of that, and a couple cans of whatever, and we love that unless we knew that, we’d never know it. And it’s quickly scribbled on a recipe card and handed around.
It’s definitely the real life version of the Friends we know that they know, and they know we know we know, and they don’t know that we know they know we…you get the idea.
So I share a little bit of that here, and a few things I’ve picked up a long the way I think will help you in the kitchen. I’m no expert, but I’ve cooked on a working ranch, in Italian restaurants, in South African restaurants, in local culinary schools, and I’ve even whipped up a dish at a Michelin star restaurant {no, not as an employee, but still}.
You’ll see a few of those recipes pop up in here on occasion, but the majority of the food you’ll see are the quick and easy dishes I whip up to feed my family and friends, take to potlucks, wrap up and send to work, or ship off to friends who are in places where a homemade baked goodie is an indescribable blessing.
So this is life – and cooking – on the home front.
You may find some affiliate links and sponsored posts here, but this is primarily a hobby blog. Anything I share for sale around here is something I would buy – and probably have bought – anyway that I want to share with you, and I never accept a sponsored post for anything I wouldn’t use. For partnership opportunities, you can contact me here.
Thanks for visiting, and happy cooking!
