Who Are We? We are what my brother-in-law refers to as D.I.N.K.s – Double-Income-No-Kid yuppies. We are a couple of 30-somethings with healthy appetites who’ve been married for a while. We’ve lived in Charlotte for the last 5 yrs after doing a brief stint in San Diego. Although we are not polar opposites, we are different enough to keep life interesting. I’m a Mac, he’s a PC. I’m a planner, he’s more adventurous. I like structure, organization, predictability, and indoor fun. He’s truly a Boy Scout at heart who legitimately enjoys all things “outdoorsy”…as well as helping little old ladies across the street. He loves hiking, camping, biking, and all that jazz. Despite being raised in small-town Alabama, I am a city girl at heart and do not – I repeat DO NOT- share his outdoorsy inclinations. My idea of camping is staying in a hotel that does not offer room service. It didn’t take my hubby long to realize that if he wanted to share THOSE interests with his spouse, he had clearly married the wrong woman! One of the things we do have in common, however, is that we both love to eat and we appreciate good drink. We’ve joked for years that our only shared hobby is going out to dinner.
We’ve always said that one of the benefits of being D.I.N.K.s (and intending to stay that way) is that we can fly off to New York or Paris on a moment’s notice. The reality is that, since I finished graduate school and joined my hubster in the working world, we’ve gotten caught up in the minutia of the daily grind and have barely explored the world outside Charlotte, much less jetted off to Paris. By day, I am a Speech-Pathologist. By night, I’m a budding foodie and wannabe sommelier who’s always harbored a secret desire to be a writer. So, on this blog at least, I’ll be known as the Wine Girl. My hubby, on the other hand, has had a deep seated appreciation of beer since…well, since before it was legal for him to have it. But I’ll let him explain introduce himself to you next. Â One thing I will tell you about him, though, is through careful and varied tastings over the years, he has succeeded in making a beer drinker out of me as well. To that end, he will be known as the Beer Guy in this little corner of the world.
What Does “Kitchen Doesn’t Travel” Mean? Last year I became obsessed with a series Chef Mario Batali did for PBS called Spain…On the Road Again. Â Basically, he, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Bittman (NY Times Food Writer) and Claudia Bassols (Spanish Actress) took a culinary and cultural road trip across Spain. In the 12th episode (Pure Paella), Gwyneth & Mario traveled to Valencia, where paella was born, to learn to make the quintessential Spanish paella. While eating the paella with the family Mario asked them “So what do you think of paellas from other regions of Spain?“ The translated response was this: “They are not paellas. Kitchen does not travel. You must eat it where it is born.”
To us, that was a call to action. The wheels started turning and the idea for this little blog was born.
So What’s This All About? We are tired of just going through the “work-go home-eat-sleep-work” rut we’ve let ourselves get into. We want to take “the joy of life” a little more seriously. We’re going to take our mutual interest in good food and drink, along with a relatively new mutual interest in photography (new for me at least), and have some new adventures – big and small, near and far. Armed with my MacBook Pro, his Think Pad, and our new Nikon D90 we will document and share our adventures in cooking, tasting, eating, drinking, and traveling…all the while trying to learn how to use this darn thing:
Please to enjoy…
Cheers!
2 comments
Yay – I am super excited about this blog!! I can sense my dining out experiences already beginning to improve! 🙂
I remember talking to you about this show last year and your clear obsession with the whole idea of it! I love that you are taking your inspiration and running with it! Way to live life big!! Being a fellow foodie (though I am on sabbatical right now…I have given myself the right to this sabbatical until the fall when I will once again crack open my cookbooks and get creative in the kitchen again!) I appreciate what you are doing and will have fun along the way with you (WG) and the Beer Guy.