Food has always held a special place in both our hearts. Growing up one thing we had in common was that our families spend a great deal of time either in the kitchen or on the back porch cooking. Its one of those traditions that we hold close to both our hearts and want to replicate for our own children. The thing about food is that it’s more than just putting a meal on the table but rather taking some time to spend with those you love. When you think about the very idea of serving someone its an incredibly satisfying feeling. For our family, weekends are where we spend the greatest amount of time in the kitchen. There is nothing better than waking up before 8am on Saturday morning to my son coming up to the edge of the bed. There is something about the crisp quiet moments in the early morning before the hustle of the day even starts. He will pitter patter his little feet in our room and I know he’s coming. I’ll lean over and put my arm out and when he holds onto it I scoop him up and in one fluid motion pull him under the covers with me. Typically a full bed at this point (Mireille has brought Elston to the bed at some point in the night), I realize its moments like this that are truly special. He’ll lay there for a few minutes patiently before I start to feel him get restless. Without fail, he’ll roll towards me and say, daddy lets go downstairs. Together we both crawl out of the warm bed to get the weekend started. Although most of the time not successful, I try to take my son downstairs quietly with me while Mireille attempts to get a few more minutes of uninterrupted sleep with Elston. My favorite tradition is the few minutes I get with my son before everyone is awake where the 2 of us can start the coffee together. We start out by filling the kettle with water and filling the hand grinder with coffee beans. Jackson likes to help for a few turns before he loses interest and wants me to finish. When done, together we put the now boiling water into the french press to warm the press before putting the ground beans in there. Next dump the water and it’s now time to put the freshly ground coffee beans in the french press. Together we fill the press just above the grinds to begin the extraction process for 30 seconds. Once the initial extraction is complete, we then fill the press to the top with water and set the time for 3:30 seconds. Coffee aroma fills the kitchen. The day has officially started.

Most Saturdays, we spend as a family much of which is centered around food. Over breakfast we talk about what we are going to have for lunch and over lunch we talk about what we’re having for dinner. It’s not just what we are having, it’s what we are going to create from scratch, what time we are going to spend together with our hands making a work of art that is also delicious. At some point in the morning, Ill pull a cookbook from the wall and start thumbing through it for ideas. This wasn’t always the case. When Mireille and I were first married a dear friend gave us the newlywed cookbook. The book teaches you how to stock a pantry, cooking essentials, eating with the seasons, etc. If you carry even a small interest in cooking and haven’t read it I suggest you do so immediately, it’ll change your life. The dishes are complicated yet the techniques aren’t over your head so much that it would be discouraging. I started looking through it on the weekends pulling a recipe here and there to try out. One night, when we were done eating, Mireille looked to me and asked if she could write in the book. She said, why don’t we start documenting part of our life in the cookbook: that day’s activities, a quick update on something going on with the kids, houseguest we shared a meal with, reviews of the meal itself, etc. And to her credit much of the idea of this section of the blog was developed.

Food really became a centerpiece of our life when Elston was born. Is it nice to have someone else cook a meal for you every now and then, absolutely, but I’ll never forget going out to a local Mexican restaurant when Jackson and Elston were really young. Jackson has a lot of energy and is flailing around in his high chair (always trying to climb out), our newborn is not content with all of the loud noises around her and Mireille and I were just trying to eat a hot meal for a change. We look over and all of the chips Jackson just ate came right back up on the table. Mireille began to panic and I nervously laughed at the chaos going on. I took Jackson to get cleaned up in the bathroom when Mireille was cleaning the table all the while wrangling a newborn child. When I returned to the table we paid the tab, I downed my beer and we headed out. Admittedly, the stress of the whole situation got the best of us. What else can I say, we were newly handling 2 children, tired and hungry. Hundred dollars here, hundred dollars there. Similar situations happened time and time again, when one day Mireille and I decided that going out to eat was more work than it was worth. The whole idea was to eat a hot meal and by the time we got around to actually eating they were lukewarm at best, and the kids seemed to have a hard time as well. Life with two children is hectic enough at times and attempting to keep our children in their restaurant seats naturally steered us to make more meals at home. We seemed to always leave more frazzled than a sleepless night and concluded it just wasn’t worth it.

When we decided to stick around the house on the weekends and cook a little more, the meals started to come around as well. We started on some of the classics and spent more and more time trying to eat as best we could with the seasons. It became sort of a game to see how we could incorporate whatever we had available to us into something incredible. Like anything in time you start to get the hang of it and turn out a few good dishes every now and again. When the kids started to get a little bit older, we started venturing out again to local places around town. Every time we would eat lunch or dinner at a casual restaurant, we began to realize the cooking at our own home was better than what we were eating at the restaurant in most cases. It was kind of hard to believe but yet started to build confidence in our abilities to put great meals on the table for our family.

What started out as necessity for where were were in life, turned into a passion and in return we didn’t realize is how many great dishes we would end up discovering. Cooking has become a focal point in our home and we hope to pass down some of our favorite recipes to our children… or at least the memories we are creating while doing it. This is a place where we want to share some of the best recipes we’ve cooked. Trust us, if we can do it while stepping over two toddlers, anyone can.