What we are about and why we're writing this blog...

Who we are:

Jim has been eating his whole life (a lot) and has been an arm-chair cook for twenty years. He brings a scientist's perspective to recipes and restaurant food and is constantly trying to "make it better" along the lines of America's Test Kitchen.

Peta has worked in the wine industry for years and is a self-described "flavorist". She makes the food that Jim cooks far better and is a demon in the kitchen. Just last night... well we'll get to that in a second.

What we are doing and why:

We got tired of spending exorbitant sums of money for bland, weak-ass food and drinks when eating out, but never were bold enough (or jerks enough) to give our suggestions to the staff, even when asked! But if, for example, we asked for the orange-honey butter that a restaurant used to serve and were told that they were under new management and that they did not have orange-honey butter but that they had oranges, honey and butter by the clueless (yet friendly) waitstaff and then were brought margarine rather than butter... Well, we're gonna be a little upset about the lack of attention to detail.

However, we do understand why restaurants use margarine instead of butter: it's waaay cheaper. And if nobody ever complains that the "butter" is not butter, how are restaurants to know that anybody really cares? Well, we care and we think that you care too.

Similarly, years ago, we made a pad thai from a recipe that was insistant that we not forget the ketchup. Ketchup? It was clearly insane and the results were predictably awful. We also got sick of making a recipe that just didn't seem quite right or included a bunch of fussy steps that we felt served only to make more dishes to clean.

So last night, we gave our first "napkin o'suggestions" to the server when asked how everything was. The chef probably just threw it away, but it would be nice to think that we are doing something to help restaurants keep customers and helping to raise the quality of food in our corner of the world.