I enjoy cooking. I really do. I'm no gourmet chef, but I think I'm pretty decent. I have to give my mom some credit, because she is an amazing cook. Growing up, I never tasted Hamburger Helper, canned green beans or Easy Mac. Matt enjoys my cooking, but let's be honest. He's been known to say, "I really don't care what it is, I just like having a big wad of food in my mouth." While this is true, Matt does enjoy good food, which is fun for me because that equals going to fun restaurants and trying new things.

But back to the cooking. I am a rule follower. I always have been, and always will be. I break out into a nervous sweat when I am not sitting in my assigned seat at a sporting event. I have never pool hopped. I really never disobeyed my parents growing up. I like to follow the rules, and this applies to my cooking style. When I'm following a recipe, I FOLLOW THE RECIPE. I figure the ingredients are there for a reason - this is how it's made. I do not deviate from the recipe. I may add a little more garlic than what the recipe calls for - I like garlic. Or I may substitute half & half for whole milk, or add a little extra lemon juice, but that is about as far as I'll go. Matt's only complaint about my cooking is that I don't experiment enough. In his eyes, a truly great chef can deviate from a recipe by adding a pinch of this, or a touch of that. The only problem with this, is that Matt does not cook. So, he doesn't understand that you can't just add a dash of paprika to your dish and have it turn out hunky dory. The most dangerous thing in our kitchen is not the knife drawer or the stovetop, it's an unsupervised Matt lingering near the spice cabinet. Really. Leave the kitchen unattended for 2 minutes, and you risk returning to find Matt standing over your linguine with tapenade, arugula, and roasted cherry tomatoes with a fistful of cumin.