Kitchen Therapy

Welcome to Kitchen Therapy. After sharing a few pictures with some friends on Facebook, it was suggested (thanks Kate!) that I create a blog to share some of my favorite recipes with my friends. I was a bit reluctant because I'm not the best blogger in the world. But, I am in the process of creating a book entitled Kitchen Therapy, so I figured this blog would be a great way for get some of ideas out to facilitate the writing of the book.

We all have our comfort foods, and I think there's some reasoning behind the madness. I know it's fairly hard for me to stay unhappy when I have a bowl of ice cream in front of me. What I noticed some time ago is that being in the kitchen changes my mood. I love to cook and bake, so when I have an especially hard day (or week), I go to the kitchen to deal with it. Some of the greatest memories we have in our family have been in the kitchen. Perhaps, it was because we were poor college students, but my wife and I started the tradition of homemade birthday cakes. All of our children have had each of their birthday cakes prepared in our family kitchen. They look forward to it, and they start several months before their birthday telling me what kind of cake they want.

Lately, my kitchen has seen more use as I have spent more time working from home in an effort to deal with a life changing tragedy, the loss of my youngest daughter. In fact, one of the cutest pictures I have of her is of her standing on the kitchen table next to the Thanksgiving Red Velvet Cake. While I prefer the sweets, other smells are known to come from my kitchen ranging from turkey wraps to soup in bread bowls. I hope everyone enjoy the recipes and please let me know how they turn out as you try them!