In The Beginning...

...there was ketchup.

Growing up, there was only one condiment of choice: tomato ketchup. No matter the brand, there was always the familiar glass bottle (this was before your modern shatter-proof plastic containers, kiddies) in the refrigerator, ready to be poured, shaken, spread, or blobbed upon any food that needed that extra kick. To me, ketchup made otherwise unpalatable foods edible, and there are some meals I remember that if it hadn't been for that lovely red pasty substance, I never would have gotten them down.

I would put ketchup on everything- fried eggs, potato chips, macaroni and cheese. Fried fish. The typical, ever-present hot dogs that every child in America eats. Chicken, beef, pork; it didn't matter. It smothered my mother's meatloaf. It drowned the ground beef in my tacos. It was the spread of choice for bologna and cheese sandwiches. And while my tastes have grown more refined over the years, I still harken back to the first, the best of all the condiments.

My husband, "Cockroach," likes to joke that I surely must drink the ketchup straight from the bottle, because we go through a 40oz bottle at least once a month, and it's pretty much entirely my doing. I've never gotten over the habit of spreading it on my bologna or mixing it into my macaroni and cheese. It's a taste I've never been able to conquer. The child in me still adores it.

Ironic, isn't it then, that I abhor and detest the common garden tomato, key ingredient to that lovely paste that I adore? Perhaps it's the texture of the flesh, or ever-present seeds. Honestly, I just don't care for the flavor of raw tomatoes. Steamed, sun-dried, tomato paste or ketchup, sure! But never in the raw. Cockroach eats those for me.

I'm like that with cucumbers, too. I love pickles, but I can't stand the pure vegetable state they derive from. Maybe I just care for things soaked in vinegar.

My tastes have gotten varied over the years, and I have grown from the stubborn child who would not eat anything that did not look familiar to an adult with braver taste buds. I like to say I'll give almost anything a try at least once. Well, most anything. And with the amount that my husband and I travel, both within our home state and out of it, we do a lot of sampling.

What you'll find here is a little bit of this and that, local flavors and international cuisine alike. You'll get to know our favorite places and well as the gambles we take on this journey of taste. I invite you to follow this blog and see just what kind of culinary adventures we manage to get into!