Everything you wanted to know about me....

Welcome to How to Cook...Something! I'm Jacki, the one spending all of her time making messes in the kitchen. But usually those messes turn into something yummy, and when they do I share here on my blog.

I am a wife to great guy I met in Denmark, and mom to a cute little girl. I have undergraduate degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering, and am back in school to finish my education. Ten years from now I hope to have Dr. in front of my name. When I am not cooking I am reading.

I started this blog as a way to keep track of my cooking and baking attempts and to connect with other food lovers out there. Along the way it has taken on a life of it's own. But it's fun.

Here are some questions that some of my readers have asked me. If there's something you want to know that hasn't been asked yet, what are you waiting for? Go ahead, don't be shy!

As a wife to a Dane, and Mom to a Danish-American (edited by me to add - that makes me sound so cool!), what meals/dishes does your husband insist upon for celebrations or special occasions?

Right now, my go-to Danish meal for Peter is frikadeller, the most quintessential Danish meal out there. At Christmas time I make æbleskiver. Once in a while I even attempt to make rød grøde med fløde. But otherwise, I think I am lacking in this area. I don't think I make enough Danish food. And Peter would agree.

Do you add any special twists to the Danish meals make them yours?

Nope, Peter doesn't allow it. I have several Danish cookbooks that I have bought in Denmark, and Peter doesn't allow me to deviate from them at all. Even with the frikadeller. He has a fit when he sees the way I make it. I have to make things the way his mom does and grandma did.

How do you keep a Danish kitchen in the USA? What substitutions have you found that help your Dane feel at home?

I keep my kitchen pretty much how I would keep it in Denmark....filled with lots of meat, potatoes, and coffee! As far as substitutions go, the only thing we don't have and he misses like crazy is rugbrød. Haven't found anything remotely similar yet.

Where did you learn to cook?

Seven years ago, before I moved to Denmark and met Peter, I was living on my own and my recipe book consisted of taped in clippings of heating instructions from frozen and boxed foods. I hated to cook. When I moved to Denmark, I had to learn how to cook, because convenience foods were very expensive. So I consulted lots of online recipes and such, and became a marginal cook. Nothing fancy.

But then Emma was diagnosed with Celiac Disease back in 2007 and I was forced to learn how to cook everything - and I mean everything! - from scratch. As an engineer I am very analytical by nature, so I treated learning how to cook like any other subject I studied in school. I immersed myself in cookbooks, cooking magazines, read several blogs, and just experimented like crazy. Along the way I found out that I actually loved cooking and creating new dishes with different tastes and textures.

Now I can safely say I have a healthy obsession with cooking.

Can you give someone who is useless at cooking some tips on how to get better, and - more importantly - how to enjoy cooking?

To start with, don't try to make something that has 15 ingredients! Start simple, and work your way up from there. Steer clear of recipes that have hard-to-find ingredients. And especially don't pay attention when a recipe says it takes only 30-minutes or less. That is only if the person has been making it for a year; otherwise, it will take time to cook a new recipe.

Where can I find simple recipes that don't take a lot of time and don't need loads of ingredients?

Some of my favorite go-to chefs for simple ingredients are Giada de Laurentis, Rachel Ray, and especially Elie Krieger. You can find them all on the Food Network website.

Is cooking something you do with your husband and/or daughter? Or do you prefer to cook alone?

I do not mind someone helping me in the kitchen when I am cooking a meal, but baking? I definitely prefer to bake alone. Probably because it requires a lot of concentration when it comes to measuring and mixing.

Where do you want to go with your cooking? Is it just a hobby or something more?

I would eventually like to become a published food writer, and maybe even write a cookbook. But for now I still have loads to learn, and that alone will keep me busy for years to come.

Have you hand any memorable disasters in the kitchen?

Right off the top of my head...a spinach-stuffed meatloaf in Denmark that exploded in the oven. That was the worst, I think. That, and the first six months of learning to bake gluten-free. I made many cakes and cookies that fell apart and had the taste of cardboard and texture of saw dust.

Which dish are you most proud of having cooked, and why? My Grandma's Meatballs and Pasta Sauce, because that recipe came from her mom, who probably learned it from her mom back in Sicily, and so forth. It's my connection to all of them, and something I hope to pass down to Emma.

Do you prefer cooking main courses or desserts?

Both!

Which cuisine would you most like to master? Italian, with Danish a close second. French is the third.

Can you eat and enjoy the food you have cooked?

Sometimes I am my own worst critic and am not impressed with what I have made, but I really enjoy cooking something new and surprising myself at how wonderful it tastes.

If you could go out for a meal, what are your favorite dishes? We very seldom get to go out to eat because of Peter and Emma's disease, so for me any chance to not have to cook is a treat! I don't care what it is...as long as it is something I didn't have to cook!

Who clears the table if you've cooked?

We all pitch in to clear the table, but I do the dishes because I love to watch TV and wash dishes. Yes, I am weird.

What is your first cooking memory?

My first and favorite cooking memory is baking Christmas cookies with my dad every year on Christmas eve, and then eating them while coloring in some new coloring books. This picture has nothing to do with that, but it shows me at a young age cooking. And I think I was a cute little kid.



Can you remember what you cooked for Peter for the first time he stayed for dinner?

We hadn't been dating for very long, maybe a week, and he came over for dinner. I was not a good cook, so I just made pasta with jarred pasta sauce. Let's just say it wasn't my cooking skills that kept him around. He laughed at my cookbook.

If you had to cook a meal for the most important meal of your life, what would you cook?

A lemon-roasted chicken with garlic and sage potatoes, because it is hard to mess up a roast chicken. I get the skin real crispy and it is just yummy.