Hello World

Welcome to my blog and my very first post! This is a test post and my very first blog post ever. It is also an attempt to get myself to start writing and stop procrastinating. I hope to post regularly (weekly) and ensure that each post includes a recipe and a picture. I want to hold myself to a particular standard and create a blog that I would enjoy reading and following but I often find myself experiencing writer's block.

Already I can see that I am writing as if this were a journal. It's the most natural format and this blog is intended to be a personal collection of foods and experiences with a large emphasis on pictures. Unfortunately, I don't have a nice camera but I'll try my hardest to take lots of pictures with a minimum amount of blurriness. To kick things off I'll just describe the first dish that inspired me to start recording my cooking adventures. It all started about a year ago with the following tart:

A blurry tart!

The preceding tart was just an experiment I attempted about a year ago. I remember sitting down and trying to brainstorm ideas for an edible birthday present. I had always thought tarts I saw in bakeries were beautiful but expensive. I had never considered that something like that would be producible in my own home. After looking a few recipes I realized that the idea was actually pretty simple and was easily personalized. I made a simple cookie crust and found a delicious recipe for a passion fruit custard for the filling. After creating the base I got to enjoy the fun part of decorating the top in a fashion I found attractive and tasty looking. The decorating was by far the most fun part and adding a glaze of apricot preserves really gave it a professional shine. I was immensely proud of my work and realized that the process was much easier than it seemed. I took several pictures, posted them to facebook and received a positive response. That tart was a perfect confidence builder because it tasted great and looked great! Since then I have refined my technique and have a couple new methods and techniques. Seen here:

 Tart Variant #1 for Thanksgiving 2012

Tart Variant #2 for Thanksgiving 2012

I have found that each iteration of a recipe really allows me to experiment further and really inspires me to keep perfecting my technique and I am always surprised by my ability to improve on things. I plan on doing a more in-depth look (complete with recipe of course) at home made fruit tarts. This just serves as a kind of history of my blog and what really got me started. You could say these are my humble beginnings. Hopefully I can look back on this post a year later and remember how it all got started. Next time I plan on talking about my adventures in making home made pizza and my first foray into yeast.

- Wyt