And now for something completely different. 

During the “sectional revolution” at the Chicago Tribune, there was an opportunity for those with a little extra time and some energy to write articles for the paper’s new feature sections.  Since I liked food, I offered a couple of different stories, including a review of  high-end hamburgers.  I also got an opportunity to write about a newly developed passion for cooking and took a cooking class.

Like most Americans, I was raised on a steady diet of meat and potatoes, all cooked in the same basic manner: unexciting. It wasn’t until I opened the doors to a variety of food palaces here and in San Francisco that I began to enjoy food, even look forward to it! But eating out  puts  a cramp on the  budget.

So confronted with bankruptcy or more meat and potatoes, I took up ethnic cooking and soon discovered that all knowledge does not come from a cookbook. I decided it ’twas time for a cooking class.

It was a fun class and lessons learned are still applied today.  And it was a fun assignment to write about my experiences.