Culinary Vagabond

Welcome to a Culinary Vagabond's travels through food.

Who Am I

I'm an American who wasn't taught to cook growing up and who's parents didn't have a particular preference for one specific cuisine. I got to college, made friend with a bunch of guys who could all cook really well, and decided that obviously I need to learn to do that too.

Complication: I'm anosmic — completely without a sense of smell — and have a number of food-based migraine triggers. Also, it turns out it probably was a good thing I wasn't taught to cook as a child. The primary cook in the house then is actually quite bad at it. Like my partner feels cheated out of good Jewish food by having them as an in-law.

So, what's a college student with delusions of being able to learn anything and no sense of smell to do?

Try any and every recipe they get their hands on that looks good.

And I haven't stopped for the past 20 years.

Cookbooks to finish or start trying in 2025:

Sous Vide: Better Home Cooking by Hugh Acheson Leftover from 2024 2 recipes left to try

Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking by Fuschia Dunlop Left over from 2024 23 recipes left to try

Bookmarks from the Internet 1 dessert recipe left to try Oh gods if you send me more it'll probably grow again...

Modernist Cuisine at Home Leftover from 2024 (maybe 2023, I'm not sure) 79 recipes left to try This is primarily Partner's responsibility to work through. He's the one interested in this mishegas, he gets primary responsibility

Vegan for Everybody by America's Test Kitchen New for 2025! 25 recipes to try

Foolproof Preserving by America's Test Kitchen New for 2025! 16 recipes to try

Gullah Geechee Home Cooking by Emily Meggett New for 2025! 9 recipes to try (4 of which are desserts—pray for me)

Turkuaz Kitchen by Bëtul Tunç New for 2025 22 recipes to try

What Will be Posted Here

Photos and musings on recipes I try

reblogs of pretty food pictures

Hi Folks.

Partner was kind enough to make a third recipe of pie dough when he was making the pie a congregant bought during the congregational auction. So, I had a dough I just had to roll out the weeknight I tried out MIL's quiche recipe. Which is good, because I don't think this is a recipe for a weeknight when you have to make the dough.

Not that MIL expected people to make the dough. The recipe card calls for "a pie shell". Which I believe means a pre-baked shell from the grocery store. Partner and I are somewhat extra though, so. Pie dough from scratch stuck in the fridge for a recipe three days later.

This is not a fancy recipe. Again, a good thing since the entire set of directions contained on the recipe card was "bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes." Following the basics of put the wets together, then put the drys together, then put the drys in the wets, and the mix into the shell seems to have produced the desired result.

Seeing as Partner said it tasted like his memory of his Mom's quiche.

Recipe: Keep