In most of the developed world today, food preparation takes place largely outside the home. This is not a bad thing, in of itself: not everyone wants to or should have to bake their own bread and make their own cheese. However, with the movement of food preparation from the kitchen to the factory, we have lost a great deal of understanding about where our food comes from, what is safe to eat, and what really good food is. This understanding can empower us to make better decisions about what we eat, whether that means foie gras and young raw-milk cheeses, or commodity corn. My interest is in rediscovering this understanding, not just academically, but in my own kitchen...

So, welcome to The Brave Potato, my new food blog. I'm a food hobbyist with no formal culinary training, just a desire to jump in and really get my fingers in the dough, so to speak. Anything is fair game. I'll be exploring traditional foodways and methods, sustainable practices, and the limits of my small urban kitchen. Can it make cheese? Can it cure meat? Can it survive without commodity corn and Monsanto?

My style of cooking is rather haphazard, involving a lot of research, but as much improvisation. So rather than detailed recipes, my goal will be to provide guides and resources for the activities I take on. So far I've found that many more things are open to the home cook, even the apartment-with-a-shoebox-kitchen cook, than I might have thought. Here we go!