Hello, world!

or, a bio is a bio, but a blog post is forever.

The best introduction to this journal I haven't written yet is to tell you about its naming. A year or two ago, I thought of creating a blog called "The Hapless Chef," because at the time, I was learning to cook and the results were mixed, to put it kindly. My family isn't big on cooking - my mother often tells me, when I call her with cooking questions, "Why don't you just order in? That's what I would do if I lived in NYC." Actually, the reason I started cooking for myself was that when I moved to a new neighborhood, I found it easier to learn to cook than to get menus from the various takeout places. In other words, I learned to cook because I was lazy.

My cooking hasn't improved that much since then, but the time I have available for "cooking" has decreased. (There might be a relationship between the two.) I'm currently training for the New York City Marathon, training to climb Mt. Rainier, and taking aerial silk and trapeze classes at the New York Circus Arts Academy. Oh yeah, and working.

Instead, I've embraced what a friend calls lame-ass cooking. It's cooking that takes as little time as possible. While I still want to make yummy, healthy food, I've added efficiency as a goal: a yummy, healthy meal that takes 30mins from start to finish is obviously better than one that takes 2 hours and leaves me with a hot meal at 10pm. Moreover, I've come to realize that some foods are just unreasonable to make at home for one person, especially if I can get them delivered for a nominal amount. There are definitely techniques and tricks to making quick, healthy, tasty food - this blog will document my ongoing efforts to develop them.