One of the first things I learned as a cook is how versatile eggs can be... they're a main ingredient in souffle, hollandaise sauce, carbonara, gelato, merengue, omelets, cookies and god knows what else. Don't underestimate what you can do with an egg.
Also, don't put the good knives in the dishwasher, and, in the same breath, don't buy silverware that requires hand-washing. Seriously, Pottery Barn, what was up with that?
I'm a reasonably accomplished hobby-cook. I throw some things together in tin foil and toss them in the broiler a few nights a week, and it usually turns out okay, if I don't start a fire. When it's appropriate, I can turn out a ceviche or a bearnaise sauce (the right way... no Knorr packets going on here).
This summer, my husband and some friends posed the culinary challenge of making a new taco every Wednesday night for the entire summer, or at least the entire season of So You Think You Can Dance. I also just bought an ice cream maker because I keep reading these amazing recipes for grapefruit/tarragon gelato, or lemon-thyme sorbet. Sometimes, I have an idea that is almost completely original, at least as much as such things can be in a world with a finite list of ingredients. Tonight's super-fancy idea was ginger-wasabi gelato. I'll probably try that at some point. In the meantime, I'll post about my attempts at recipes that originate either in my head or on the internet or from the guy who works at the fish market on the ground floor of my office building. I'll let you know how it goes, how I modified the recipe if wasn't an independent inspiration, and probably throw in other stuff that may be completely irrelevant.
By the way, I live downtown in a major city, and source my ingredients on my walk home, so my culinary style is very much dependent on what I can buy within a few blocks. I'm lucky that those blocks include a fantastic fish market and Philadelphia's Reading Terminal, though I'm rarely going home early enough to stop there before it closes. Sometimes, I have to get ingredients from CVS.
