Good Afternoon Crusaders,

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging experience. I call you crusaders because this will be a journey, or crusade for all of us.  We will be looking at everything from foods, drinks, experiences, recipes, restaurants, and everything in between from apples all the way to zwieback. So if variety is the spice of life, let’s enjoy every bite.

First and foremost let me introduce myself, my name is Joe Jackson. I am an amateur foodie who loves to eat and explore the vast world that food has to offer. There is no better way to experience the world around us than by diving in stomach first. I have traveled all around the world and nothing has meant more to me than the different foods that I have experienced. I have watched a wide variety of food shows and sampled an even wider variety of foods from different countries and cultures from everywhere. I have never regretted anything that I have tried, regardless of the outcome, and that is what this is all about.

My goal for this is introduce everyone to my extreme love of food and cooking. There is not a restaurant or food that I will not try at least once. I want this to be a fluid experience, available to everyone. I will not only share the different experiences that I have had but I invite you all to share experiences that you have had. I invite each of you to please respond with ideas for food that you would like to see tried, I will do my best to follow your recipes and/or ideas and provide honest feedback. I also would love it to have not only you provide food recipes that you would like tried but also if you wish to either send me products to me that you would like to see tried then I will try them and give you an honest feedback on what I think of them. In fact I would love it if you send me items you want reviewed, though I know that this is a free forum blog and asking for you to use your hard earned money to send me, someone you don’t know, a food item is costly. With that in mind I also invite you to recommend items to me that you would like me to purchase and review and given that my finances allow I will do my best to do so as well. So please feel free to provide as much input as you feel comfortable doing so.

You all should know that I live in Seattle, Washington and though I have lived all over the great United States, I am currently living in the great Pacific Northwest and as a result am limited in my foodie experiences available. Though, I am now privileged to experience some of the greatest seafood available I also live with, while a wonderful woman, someone who is not a seafood fan. So although I love seafood, my entries will be more land based foods, though I will do my best to include the latter for all of us who enjoy the bounty of the ocean.

I know that I have been rambling on and I promise that I am almost done, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my influences in this intro. My #1 is hero in the foodie world is and always will be the honorable chef Gordan Ramsay. Not only is he the ultimate greatest chef in the world, far as I’m concerned, but he goes to the extreme to find out the best way of preparing and discovering the best preparation and history of the food he cooks. He is truly an inspiration from his humble beginnings but he is also an amazing all star chef that all should aspire to in the food world. My ultimate goal is to eat at one of his restuarants, I own many of his cookbooks, many of which I have used and adore as the food is truly amazing. He is truly food’s gift to the plate, more so than sliced bread. I also admire Ferran Aria of El Bulli as he is quite an inspiration in his innovative approach to new foods, and would also love nothing more than to try his unique approach to applying chemistry to food. I was recently given a Molecular Gastronomy kit and can’t wait to explore it. Something we will all be trying together in a future installment.  Lastly one of my favorites is America’s Test Kitchen or Cook’s Illustrated as they use the same approach I admire, in that they test everything until they get the result they want. There are so many chefs and cookbooks that I look to, to form my own individual style and I could write another blog entirely just on that. I will do my best to cite my sources when I needed, to better help you experience what I have experienced, though that will not always be the case and I apologize in the past. Please forgive me.

Well Crusaders, I appreciate your sticking with me this far. Thank you for taking this journey with me and I really look forward to all of our experiences together. If you have any ideas for future ideas please feel free to share them, and if you have any negative remarks about this blog please keep them to yourself as this is for the love of food and life and if you want to be negative that will just leave a bitter taste in all our mouths and who needs that. Thank you all again and I look happy to the future with my knife and fork ready.

Happy eating and Bon Appetite,

Indiana Joe