Edible Incredible.

There are some who will travel the world looking for love. Others search for the meaning of their life. People will go looking for peace, art, a new home, fashion and religion.

Me, I'd go looking for food.

Good food is better than the best sex you will ever have. It is undemanding, unpretentious, delicious and soul satisfying. I have had meals that have made time stand still leaving me to linger in bliss upon that first mouthful of Stilton and pancetta sauce smothered over a piece of beef tenderloin. I envy the truly great chefs with an endless supply of both ingredients and inspiration. I have cranked out a few of my own dishes that have left those I've fed quite content, and I really think that's what cooking is all about. Oils and sauces, pastes, fruits, greens, soups, meats and desserts. Just thinking about the variety available to me is dizzying. Some people will never experience cuisine outside of McDonald's and whatever they cook at home. I hope to satiate my lust for food knowledge to the point where I can eat no more.

When I was a young boy I would attend pot luck dinners with my mother at the university. The course she was in (something to do with religion) always found excuses to eat, and you can bet I was always right there eating along side them. I would find ways to get invited to these culinary collisions. It was my first true introduction to a world of cooking outside my white bread menu. As many of the students were from all facets of society, so too was their cooking. Spices and sauces I'd never known topping meats and salads I can still taste to this day.

I was hooked.

I would always come home and recount for my father the menagerie of meals I had eaten. Blessed with a rocket-fueled metabolism I could eat and eat until there was no more food. Many years later I would come to work as a waiter at an upper-end restaurant where my hunger-lust would once again be tantalized by the smells of cooking. It was an Asian and French fusion restaurant where I was reintroduced to foods I had missed, and teased with dishes I had never had before. While I could write an entire separate diary devoted solely to food, I will get to my point. Food became passion for me. I'd like to clarify, my last sentence was not a typo. I do not mean a passion, I mean passion. Excellent food stimulated all my senses. The taste of fresh sea bass, the smell of juniper and coriander. The appeal of a well laid out plate, the sound of meat sizzling in the pan and the touch of tender spareribs and the curve of a wine glass.

While it's difficult to divide the cooking world from the pretense it carries with it involving the nature of chefs, it's important to do so. Chefs are like maestro's, demanding and brilliant. They are artists with knives instead of brushes, oils instead of paints. Their canvas is the plate and the tongue, and they seek to make masterpieces. As a result they can be a bit eccentric.

I suppose all I'm trying to say in this post is go out, experience food like you would a good movie or a trip overseas. Just because you may not have the means to travel does not mean you cannot bring the world to your table. There will be things you won't like, and there will be things you will love. It's important to try everything before you pass judgement on it.

Now then, what's for dinner?