When Handsome Chef Boyfriend and I had our first delicate conversations in September of 2012, I told him that chefs are artists of the highest order of magnitude, to my way of thinking. I meant that. The two of us have so much fun with food–talking about it, finding, creating and playing with it, and enjoying it. We take neither it nor ourselves too seriously. (I once told him I probably offended the butcher at a boutique-y grocery back in Knoxville when I said I could never eat something called “turducken.” Why, asked the butcher? BECAUSE, I said, it contains the word TURD. Gah. I believe HCB reacted to my telling of the story with his face in his hands.)

When he starts something in the kitchen–mine or his–I like to grab my camera and start snapping. I love the process of the unfolding of cuisine, in much the same way that I love the process of making a young dancer, or a ballet. More often than not I am asked to put away my camera. Sometimes I comply.

Neither of us is in a place of excess or extravagance in our lives at the moment, and I don’t believe those conditions would make us happy in the first place. But we still live well, especially when we are together. I have been thinking of sharing some photos I’ve made, many of them over HCB’s strong objection, the past two years. I have already shared many of them in individual posts from the archives. He will hate this attention, and that is the only reason I am a little sorry for doing this. But not that sorry; he will get over it. He is a gifted artist and I want to shout that from the rooftops. For now, this here blog is the best platform I’ve got.

In no particular order, I give you a teeny, tiny sampling of (almost) two years of amazing, wonderful, beautiful HCB cuisine, most of it prepared in a kitchen smaller than a closet, and on or in an apartment-sized range, with not one jot of counter space, on a shoe string budget.