My First Post

Last week while I was in Brooklyn, I was having lunch with my friends, Becky and Lindsay, at Bocca Lupo on Henry Street in Cobble Hill, and we started talking about what good recipes we could share with each other. See, all three of us have gone from being high intensity career women to stay-at-home-moms - well, at least temporarily. I had a baby boy, Balthazar, in February and while I am returning to work, this week actually, I've been enjoying my new life as a mom.

One of the side jobs of being home with the new baby is thinking of what to do for dinner every night. It's not only that I feel badly asking my husband to cook after he's been at work all day while I am home (even though raising our son is no walk in the park), nor is that every night around 6pm I get a call from my husband, Damien, asking, "Hey, what do you wanna do for dinner?" Having a new baby also means it doesn't make sense for us to go out to dinner as often as we used to. Between trying to get the baby on a sleep schedule and the fear of his unpredictable nuclear meltdowns, it just makes sense to eat at home more often. Plus, Damien and I have been enjoying our new domestic routine. Instead of having spaghetti with a jar of sauce, we've been preparing things like filet mignon or miso-glazed black cod paired with a much nicer bottle of wine than we used to buy. Sometimes we'll even start off with a nice Grey Goose dirty martini after my last nursing session of the day.

As Becky said during our lunch conversation, the hardest part is coming up with a plan for dinner. There is only so many nights you can get away with making your old stand-bys. So, as I navigate this new territory, I thought I would blog about it. Everyday - or as often as I can, really - I'll share what I am doing for dinner. For the most part, I'll be cooking something - from the simplest to more ambitious creations. But, sometimes I might be ordering in, or I might find a good kid-friendly place to go out to dinner. And occasionally, Damien will take the reins. He likes to cook, too.

I'll include a recipe, ideas about where to find ingredients and special cooking tools you might need and small reviews of restaurants - mostly in Miami, but we travel a lot so they might be from places like Tampa, the Dead Sea, New York or San Francisco. And sometimes, I'll post photos or video to demonstrate or show you something interesting. (I'm a video person by trade. Check out my Web site at www.bazmatazz.com.)

So, Becky and Lindsay, check back for my recipe ideas. The rest of you, let me know what you think and I'll try to improve on it as I figure this whole thing out.

Tomorrow: Picadillo - a traditional Cuban dish my mom used to make us all of the time.