Something New To Eat

I've just about decided we're in a food rut. Now I like to eat. That should come as no surprise to those of you out there in blog land who know me. While some people regard eating as just something they do for fuel to get through the day, I personally thing eating is one of the highlights of my day.

I'm not the greatest chef in the world by any stretch of the imagination and I have a lot to learn. And while I'm not a bad cook either, I think I tend to get caught up in cooking the same old things over and over and over and over and...

You get the idea.

Since the unfortunate cessation of my work related activities way back in February has lasted a lot longer than anticipated, I've spent a lot of time around the house slowly working on various projects. Most of it has been writing. Some of it has been cleaning, reorganizing and things of that nature. In the back of my mind I'm always interested in new foods and cooking methods to try and I've become pretty familiar with the ol' grill on the back porch.

Now I think I'm going to turn my attention back to cooking for a while. I've been given some great culinary books (they're a little more in depth than just cook books) as gifts and three of these are going to be what I focus on in the next few weeks (or until something shiny diverts my attention again).

The first of these is Mastering the Grill, which my parents gave to me two Christmases ago (being the Christmas I can barely remember for everything that happened the day after). The second two books were gifts from Bethany, Stirring the Pot by Tyler Florence (my favorite celebrity chef) and The Bread Bible. Though I've used Stirring the Pot just a bit, all three of these culinary books have languished on the end of the island in the kitchen for far too long. So don't be surprised to read a little bit more about my culinary explorations in the next few weeks.

On an unrelated note, the bird feeder continues to draw a pretty big crowd of hungry song birds and an even bigger crowd of Starlings. The smaller birds adjusted to my presence fairly well, so much so that I could walk within ten feet or so of the feeder without spooking them. The first day that I took my camera out with me was the day that the flock of starlings appeared. They've been there ever since and they just will not adjust to me getting close to them. At all. The first squeak of the door sends them flying for safety, which in turn sends to the smaller birds darting for cover.

So that's why there haven't been any bird pictures up here yet. I'm still working on it though.