Fresh Cracked Pepper

I worked in restaurants for just shy of a decade. From mountain lodges and urban bistros, I don’t think there’s another phrase I’ve uttered more than fresh cracked pepper? A simple question, yet I was saying so much more: May I spoil you just once more?

So here is all the fresh cracked pepper I have to offer, in abundance.

I realized earlier this year that my motivation to keep up my original blog had waned. It seems that the only thing I had the motivation to write about frivolously and fancifully was, of course, food. I started my first blog, Room for Rambling when I was entering a very transitory period of my life. I started it to keep others in touch. It ended up anchoring me. It ended up becoming something that encouraged me to write when I had no place else to do it.

And so it came to be that I settled down a little. I found a person and a place (albeit temporary) to call home for awhile. Loving people and places will bring you straight to the heart of good food, and my journal had to move over to make space for bowls and spoons. Inspired by family, friends, and thousands of scrumptious recipes simmering away on other food blogs, I decided that my adventures in the kitchen needed a more permanent home too.

And so this experiment was born. I wanted a place to keep track of my discoveries, failures and victories. So often I’ve deemed a recipe a “make again” and then promptly forgotten it. So often I’ve made a mental note of what I’d do differently next time, one that never gets transcribed. So often I’ve wanted to share tastes that have changed my life with friends and family and just never got around to it. The solution? Fresh Cracked Pepper.

I later added the subhead eating my way to health, peace, and place. As a committed runner, triathlete and wilderness junkie, food has to go the distance for me. I added the word peace to speak to the politics of food: issues of access, the environment, animal treatment, and cultural preservation. Place is a way to capture all the things I believe food can be: a bearer of memory, a vehicle of community and respect for land, locale, and season.

Fresh Cracked Pepper is also a resource. On the side bar I’ve set up some additional pages, including reviews of my favorite cookbooks and food reads, and logs of tasty beverages and chocolate. There you’ll also find links to all my recipes.

I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy trying, tasting, and photographing my works-in-progress. If the site is too small for you to comfortably view, press Ctrl + on your keyboard.

-jen

picture courtesy of David Hagerman Photography