Life is often filled with wonderful changes. When I first started Muse in the Kitchen, my aim was to blog about food, about eating, and about all the food muses I came across, whether online or in books and magazines. As I wrote in the first “About This Site” page here at Muse in the Kitchen:

Me? Blog about food? Absolutely!

People who know me will think it a bit strange - strange, because I actually don’t cook much. I live a rather full life. I’m self-employed, have three kids and lots of different irons in the fire. I don’t often make it into the kitchen to make a full home-cooked meal. My freezer is stocked to the brim with various great frozen entrees, and we have a binder with our collection of menus from all our favourite take-out spots.

So why a blog about food?

Well, I love to blog. And I love food. One of my favourite pasttimes is to curl up on the couch with a great cookbook and a hot cup of tea.

And most of all, I love reading other food blogs, interacting online with people who love to eat and love to cook, and yes, who love to read cookbooks just for the fun of it.

So much has changed since then. In January, 2008, my husband Ward discovered that he liked to cook. “Like” is actually too mild a word. He discovered he loves to cook! And so our lives underwent a dramatic change.

Gone are the frozen entrees in the freezer. Gone are the frequent trips to our favorite take-out spots, although we still do Japanese take-out once a week - both because of the delicious food, and because the chef is a good friend of Ward’s, and he now spends his time while waiting for our food chatting about different preparation techniques and asking lots of questions.

And so, too, has the focus of this site changed. We not only talk about food and eating, we now also talk a lot more about the experiences of cooking and trying out new and delightful recipes.

Ward is a fearless cook - a long list of ingredients and directions that spill over onto the next page don’t put him off making a dish. In fact, he finds these dishes a real challenge! What has this meant for us? We now regularly sit down to meals from cuisines from all around the world. And while there’s the occasional “mistake”, we’re both learning a lot about different foods, and our taste experiences have been expanding incredibly.

So we invite you to join us regularly, and enjoy our food experiences with us!

Belle Wong
Ward Jardine
February, 2008