Well, this is my first blog post and a new experience for me. I have loved cooking since I was a small child and was one of only two boys in the foods class in my Jr. High. I'll confess, though, the fact that there were only two boys compared with about 20 girls was one of the reasons I took the class. That, plus the opportunity to learn about cooking. Later in life I did attend culinary school and became a professional chef and caterer but that is a hard career choice to enable one to support a family. It was either work 18 hours per day, eat well and make a good living or work less hours, spend more time with my growing children, eat well but struggle to pay the bills. Either way I was able to eat well but was never able to balance my time between family and work.

Anyway, I digress. My purpose in writing this blog is to give creative ideas for fun family meals. You see, although I love to play with my food and can create a gourmet meal out of a few scraps found in the cupboards, my sweet wife of almost 20 years dreads dinner time and can look at a fully stocked pantry and have no idea of what to cook. She can cook, and has made some wonderful dinners, but when it comes down to the what of cooking, her mind usually goes blank. This blog is for her.

So for tonight we are going to start out with an easy and fun menu that all the children can take part in. One our our favorite interactive menus, Make your own Pizza and Salads. More on that later this afternoon. Now it's off to the store.